Community Resilient Landscapes: Examining Blue-Green Infrastructure as a Catalyst for Social Resilience

As cities face escalating and interrelated pressures from climate disruption, environmental degradation, disaster risk, and social fragmentation, the need for infrastructure that reinforces both environmental and social resilience has emerged as a defining priority for contemporary urban planning. Urbanisation compounds these pressures, reshaping how people live, work, and interact while exposing communities to heightened risks from climate change, natural disasters, and social disconnection. In response, urban areas are increasingly turning to Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) to bolster resilience, enhance health and well-being, and improve urban liveability. BGI is increasingly recognised not only for its contributions to environmental sustainability and climate adaptation but also as a form of social infrastructure that fosters social resilience by providing communal spaces that facilitate the development of social networks, encourage community participation, and strengthen interpersonal connections. However, translating this social resilience potential into practice remains limited, particularly due to the absence of a dedicated framework for assessing social resilience in the context of BGI. This limitation is compounded by the lack of systematic integration of subjective dimensions, such as user perceptions and practices, and the absence of robust approaches to ensuring inclusive and equitable access. Advancing the conceptual and operational foundations for planning socially responsive BGI is therefore fundamental to advancing more inclusive and resilient urban environments. This dissertation advances understanding of socially responsive BGI through a three-pronged, mixed-methods approach that combines theoretical development with empirical spatial and survey-based analyses. It develops a conceptual framework to operationalise social resilience in BGI, grounded in literature and adapted for the case study of Pōneke Wellington. It then evaluates the spatial accessibility and typologies of BGI within the central city to examine how equitably and inclusively these infrastructures accommodate the needs of vulnerable populations. Finally, it examines the subjective and behavioural dimensions of user engagement, namely perceptions and practices, in two central city parks, Aro Park and Matairangi Mount Victoria, to analyse how this fosters social capital across socio-demographic groups, with particular attention to those most vulnerable. Together, these components advance understanding of how inclusive and multifunctional BGI can be strategically planned as social infrastructure to enhance social resilience by supporting diverse and vulnerable urban populations. The case study in Pōneke Wellington illustrates how the framework can be applied in practice, demonstrating its utility for guiding urban planning and showing how social resilience can be actively planned through inclusive and equitable BGI.