ABSTRACT
This chapter explores green infrastructure (GI) as a spatial concept—a strategically designed network to provide diverse ecosystem services. Despite its recognised benefits, landscape fragmentation, biodiversity loss, and a decline in ecosystem quality persist due to the impact of urbanisation. GI is often regarded as merely a greening effort. This chapter advocates for a more adaptive and comprehensive approach, positioning the ecological network (EN) as the core of GI and emphasising land suitability—landscape potential with threshold resilience for different activities.
Over the last decade, GI has evolved significantly at both European and global scales, emphasising ecological integrity and continuity. However, two different approaches persist: focusing on ecosystem maintenance and enhancement (ecological focused, based on land suitability), and prioritising biodiversity conservation (biogeographically focused, based on land use).
Additionally, it presents a methodology for mapping GI in Portugal, identifying critical conservation areas, and addressing ecosystem fragmentation. Developed within the LandGI-Nexus project, it integrates the Portuguese National Ecological Network to evaluate and prioritise GI components as the most valuable and sensitive ecosystems. By extending beyond the Natura 2000 network, it aims to reconnect ecological linkages across rural and urban landscapes, through new management areas in critical zones.
