Developing a blue-green infrastructure (BGI) community engagement framework template

There is growing recognition that Blue-Green Infrastructure (BGI) (parklands, swales, ponds and green roofs, etc.) can reduce flood-risk and also benefit public health and improve environmental quality (air/water quality, biodiversity, etc.). Community engagement is critical to getting BGI implementation ‘right’ and producing more sustainable solutions, yet understandings of approaches differ and remain difficult to harmonize or resolve. A review of the extant literature shows that many guidelines frame communities in the passive 'recipient' mode, and remain quiet about the power relations framing and conditioning engagement. The paper then proposes a set of generic template principles for the development of community engagement frameworks to facilitate and encourage greater community co-production of BGI, with the hope that this could then improve public preferences, accountability, efficacy and sustainability