Promoting climate-resilient cities: Developing an attitudinal analytical framework for understanding the relationship between humans and blue-green infrastructure

Blue-green infrastructure (BGI) is an urban planning approach to hydrological issues that recognises the benefits of using urban green space and naturalised water flows. This process falls under the umbrella of "nature-based solutions" (NBS), i.e., the intentional inclusion of natural system processes within the urban fabric to achieve a range of benefits, including ecosystem services, climate adaptation and mitigation. The planning, design and management of BGI is complex, with multidimensional factors and interactions spanning various fields and disciplines. This complexity can present an obstacle to the adoption, implementation and mainstreaming of the approach. One of the emerging issues and challenges is to understand how diverse stakeholders respond to BGI and how decision makers can comprehend and use such responses. A tool supported by a body of theoretical knowledge is proposed to facilitate the research and investigation of unknown fields. Based on an integrative literature review, this paper formulates an attitudinal analytical framework (AAF) for understanding the humanBGI relationship. The established AAF synthesises, into a framework, multidimensional perspectives and integrates subject-, object- and context-related factors that can influence people's attitudes towards BGI. The proposed AAF bridges disciplinary boundaries, embracing the potential symbiosis among humans, BGI and place. This paper contributes to BGI adoption by forming the basis for further inter- and transdisciplinary research and practices of BGI. Its significance lies in establishing a theoretical framework to better our understanding of the human-BGI relationship, which is a prerequisite to the successful implementation of effective BGI, thereby promoting climate-resilient cities.