Green Infrastructure for Socio-Ecologically Resilient Cities: The Case of Amman City Center, Jordan

Densely populated areas pose challenges for the local governments to tackle with the social and environmental problems of urbanization such as degraded natural environment, social and environmental injustice, reduced feeling of well-being, increased air temperatures, and high flooding risks, leaving urban communities vulnerable to stressors. These global challenges place a pressing encounter for urban environments demanding more resilient systems that can deal with the stresses of urbanization. Moving on from this perspective, the research focuses on the socio-ecological theory of resilience, in an attempt to understand how this discipline evolved over the years to host the human ecosystem approach to study the interactions between social and ecological systems, and highlight approaches to reinstate nature into urban areas through the integration of urban Green Infrastructure (GI). The literature review indicates that there is limited research on the application of this approach in the field of urban planning and highlights the fact that GI embraces a potential for strengthening resilience and assisting disaster risk reduction (DRR). As such, the research focuses on understanding how GI can be implemented into the human ecosystem spatial networks of challenging inner-city urban contexts to reach socio-ecological resiliency, versus developing tactical solutions during emergency situations. Accordingly, a theoretical framework is proposed that approaches the reciprocal relationships between spatial patterns and sociocultural processes through the use of an integrated systems approach where the natural and cultural landscape can be spatially and functionally integrated to enable the creation of more socio-ecologically resilient cities through a GI oriented approach. The research utilizes a mixed methodology where both quantitative and qualitative data are collected and analyzed. Questionnaire surveys are employed to measure the pro-environmental behavior of local communities in the city center of Amman. The methodology uses quantitative tools based on graph/space syntax theories. It is argued that these two methods withhold powerful diagnostic tools for the improvement of socio-ecological resilience in dense urban areas as in the case of Amman through visualizing and assessing human ecosystem spatial patterns to develop tactical solutions in emergency situations. The findings of the study address the possibilities for the enhancement of the patchiness of the ecological system by re-establishing a socially driven landscape connectivity where GI can be developed and sustained. To this end, the study offers benefits for the development of socio-ecological resiliency and DRR within the context of the case and similar cases by suggesting specific context-sensitive aspects within its framework that can be generalized for planning, implementing, and managing urban GI, building resiliency capacities, and reducing vulnerabilities in urban communities.