In line with Sustainable Development Goal 11 of the United Nations, Sustainable Cities and Communities, the municipality of Amsterdam is working hard to make its beautiful but fragile city more sustainable and climate adaptable. To do so, they are spitting out reports describing their proposed urban planning policies. The Amsterdam Environmental Vision 2050 (AEV) is one of those policy reports. According to the AEV, the desired development of Amsterdam is based on five strategic choices. One of those is “rigorous greening”, while another is “growth within boundaries”. 

These two goals seem sensible, since the demand for housing in Amsterdam is expected to rise with 150.000 new residences between now and 2050. To protect these new citizens from climate change-induced environmental hazards, and to make their living environment more comfortable, a rigorous amount of new urban vegetation would be the right option. However, research by Giezen et al. (2018) has shown that policies aimed at densifying and greening cities simultaneously have contradicted each other in the past. In this blog post, I will review the plans of the municipality as described in their policy document ‘Greenvison 2020-2050’, to examine how well the municipality is considering the trade-off between densification and greening.

Contradicting planning policies

In 2018, Giezen et al. published a paper where they described their analysis of net land-use change in Amsterdam from green vegetation to gray built-up. They did so by making use of a GIS satellite remote sensing analysis to detect densification at the expense of urban green between 2003 and 2016. The results were that approximately 11% of urban green was lost in just these 13 years time. This loss was not unexpected, as similar studies in different cities also one-by-one conclude that policies aiming at densification result in a replacement of urban green. For the municipality of Amsterdam to avoid this doom scenario, they need to come up with innovative plans to green within the limited open space in its already densely built city.

Green on buildings

The Amsterdam Greenvision 2020-2050 is aware of the greening vs. densifying paradox. In their introduction, they write: “Given the importance of green, urban challenges must not come at the expense of green space and its quality. Therefore we are going to provide more green where possible and make better use of existing green.”  In the cute drawing included on page 6 of their policy report (Figure 1), they reveal where the municipality would like to find open space that is suitable for vegetation: on buildings.

Green facades and green roofs contribute significantly to one of the main reasons for the municipality to green, which is to cool the city and to reduce the urban heat island effect. Because the green is placed directly on buildings, the cooling ecosystem service provided by vegetation through evapotranspiration and shade provision is maximized.

Figure 1: Sketch of urban green placement

Green and Water

Another type of urban land use that also adapts the microclimate in cities is water. This is something the city of Amsterdam is rich in. The goal of the municipality, as described in their Greenvision, is to make sure that a minimum of 50% of their docks and banks are greened with native water plants. The recreational and biodiversity value of green and water is closely linked. Green in and close to water improves the water quality and water near green feeds vegetation. Around water sites where there is already a lot of green, the municipality aims at improving the quality of green to increase its value to recreation biodiversity and water management.

Innovative green placement

Apart from the obvious placements of green, the municipality is thinking outside the box by greening its infrastructure routes. For example, they are looking into ideas to green the now paved gray tramways to a green tram infrastructure network. 

Another innovative idea is to create parks on tunnels. The implementation of this policy plan has already started on the Spaarndammer- and the Gaasperdammertunnel as marked in the map in Figure 2. The park on the Gaasperdammertunnel is placed over the A9 and is equally as large as the Oosterpark and Sarphatipark combined. The park connects multiple cycling and car roads and connects the Nelson Mandelapark with the Gaasperdampark (see Figure 3). 

Figure 2: Locations of green Spaarndammertunnel and Gaasperdammertunnel

Figure 3: Map of the Gaasperdammertunnelpark

Green unless

If you read the Greenvision, it almost seems as if the municipality is planning on turning all of Amsterdam into a beautiful green wilderness. However, in their radical greening plans, they do point out an exception: the rule ‘green unless’. It states: “Wherever we can, concretion is replaced by green.” For every project or initiative, they search for options to replace tiles and asphalt with green space. This means, as described earlier, that they even try to move above-ground infrastructure underground. Streets and squares will become green unless other functions make this impossible. This is for example the case with pedestrian areas, bicycle paths, or public transport roads. Another exception that is made is for pavement that needs to be preserved from a spatial and cultural historical viewpoint. 

From now on

After a revision of the Greenvision, I am certain that the municipality is well aware of the challenges of combining climate adaptability and densification. It appears as if the municipality has read the paper by Giezen et al., and proposed to change its policy course to prevent making the same mistakes as they did between 2003 and 2016. Only time will tell if the ambitious plans of the municipality will have the desired outcomes. We would have to wait and monitor the land-use change again in a few years to examine the effectiveness of the Greenvision. Based on the pretty floraly garden pictures in the report, I am excited about the new green Amsterdam they are painting.

Bibliography

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