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Green Infrastructure is an important instrument for the overarching goal of European transport policy: to reduce the carbon footprint of transport, mitigate the negative effects of land uptake and fragmentation, and boost opportunities to better integrate land use, ecosystem and biodiversity concerns into policy and planning.
Transport is responsible for around a quarter of EU greenhouse gas emissions, making it the second biggest greenhouse gas emitting sector after energy. Transport also has significant impacts on biodiversity through ecosystem destruction and fragmentation, thereby negatively impacting ecosystem services. Avoiding or mitigating the fragmentation impacts of transport infrastructure on nature is a well-established Green Infrastructure strategy in the transport sector. Fragmentation of nature networks may be minimised by choosing specific design solutions, e.g., tunnels, or viaducts which minimise land-take or by allowing watercourses, including natural banks, to continue under the structure. A large expertise in the transport sector exists on the implementation of green bridges and eco-tunnels to mitigate the barrier effects for wildlife. Developing Green Infrastructure adjacent to infrastructure has the potential to deliver many ecosystem services. Road and railway verges and canal banks form important wildlife corridors and play a key part in the tourism appeal of the landscape for many recreational activities. They can be an important food source for wild pollinators. Moreover, vegetation reduces noise levels by hampering or modifying the propagation of sound.
Green Infrastructure solutions can also sustainably mitigate carbon emissions, using the potential of new or restored peat lands and forests for carbon uptake and storage. Furthermore, transport infrastructure is vulnerable to extreme weather events and natural disasters, such as floods, landslides and avalanches, which cost lives and are the cause of billions of EUR of damage each year in the EU. Green Infrastructure solutions that boost disaster resilience of infrastructure form an integral part of EU policy on disaster risk management.
