ABSTRACT
This chapter introduces recent green infrastructure planning and design work in Hornsby, New South Wales, Australia, a local government area on the northern fringe of metropolitan Sydney. Hornsby’s character is underscored by its natural heritage and a vast hinterland of protected lands and waters that host a diversity of plants and animals. However, rapid urban growth, land-use change and urban densification increasingly conflict with this natural heritage, and compounded by climate change, mean habitat fragmentation and species extinction. Intertwining the social and the ecological through a methodology including mapping, interactive design charrettes and ground-truthing, an accurate, measurable and visual green infrastructure masterplan was developed. This ably executed the aspirations of local and state policy and captured community vision across several scales. The project offers a solution-oriented method for similar contexts globally, regardless of geographical location and offers a framework for landscape resilience in the face of biodiversity loss, rapid climate and land-use change that is inclusive of the people most invested: those who live there.
