Green Infrastructure at the fringes of cities performs ecosystem services in a similar way as for the inner urban areas, though direct benefits from urban-rural interactions are highlighted. Green spaces in the peri-urban area may improve air quality and mitigate climate change. A well connected network of green elements forming ventilation channels facilitates the circulation of fresher and cleaner air from the periphery into the city. The vegetated ventilation network may reduce traffic emissions, mitigate noise, and provide a cooling effect.\n\nOpen areas at the urban fringe may favour species richness. These natural and semi-natural areas generally host a diversity of landscapes, as they are dynamic locations surrounded by a variety of land uses. Moreover, green infrastructure elements may be used to network together urban areas with their neighbouring countryside. An improved connectivity may support the functioning of ecosystems, both urban and rural, mitigating the negative impacts of the built environment.\n\nMoreover, the urban-rural interface forms a vital recreational and cultural pool for urban society that is equally connected to nature and to the countryside.\nThe effective green infrastructure indicator is based on the potential distribution of green infrastructure in the peri-urban area, that is, the probability to find a green infrastructure element in the territory or in the closed neighbouring area.\n\n\n\nThis service was specifically created for UrbanGI Story Map, so its layer structure and attributes are tailored to the map’s needs.

Green Infrastructure at the fringes of cities performs ecosystem services in a similar way as for the inner urban areas, though direct benefits from urban-rural interactions are highlighted. Green spaces in the peri-urban area may improve air quality and mitigate climate change. A well connected network of green elements forming ventilation channels facilitates the circulation of fresher and cleaner air from the periphery into the city. The vegetated ventilation network may reduce traffic emissions, mitigate noise, and provide a cooling effect.\n\nOpen areas at the urban fringe may favour species richness. These natural and semi-natural areas generally host a diversity of landscapes, as they are dynamic locations surrounded by a variety of land uses. Moreover, green infrastructure elements may be used to network together urban areas with their neighbouring countryside. An improved connectivity may support the functioning of ecosystems, both urban and rural, mitigating the negative impacts of the built environment.\n\nMoreover, the urban-rural interface forms a vital recreational and cultural pool for urban society that is equally connected to nature and to the countryside.\nThe effective green infrastructure indicator is based on the potential distribution of green infrastructure in the peri-urban area, that is, the probability to find a green infrastructure element in the territory or in the closed neighbouring area.\n\n\nThis service was specifically created for UrbanGI Story Map, so its layer structure and attributes are tailored to the map’s needs.

The urban-rural interface, the area where a city or a town meets the countryside, has no clear delineation due to the permeability of its boundaries. It is a dynamic and highly diverse region, where development processes and changes occur at different spatial and temporal scales. The urban fringe is characterised by the trade-off of land uses and the compensation of derived impacts. Here, a strong competition for land use takes place and, accordingly, potential conflicts of interest may rise among a variety of end-users. Although, it also presents an opportunity for greening and for connecting existing green spaces to build a solid and functional natural network.\n\nThe hotspot percentage identifies those areas where the influence of green spaces and the impact of artificial elements overlap. This indicator informs about the amount and location of areas where potential conflicts may exist or, seeing it from a positive perspective, where management actions present major opportunities for enhancement. From one hand, high hotspot values may be due to the negative effects of the encroachment of artificial areas into green landscapes and the related loss of ecosystem services and function. On the other hand, it may represent an opportunity for alleviating urban heat island effect or pollution cleaning by green spaces, or on the contrary. \n\n\nThis service was specifically created for UrbanGI Story Map, so its layer structure and attributes are tailored to the map’s needs.

Green urban areas such as parks, public and private gardens, and even trees lining streets can facilitate climate change adaptation and mitigation, improve health and quality of life, and may favour biodiversity conservation.\n\nVegetated areas in cities can perform a cooling effect thanks to evapotranspiration and shadowing, which may improve thermal comfort of urban dwellers, and increase their resilience to heat waves events. Moreover, green urban areas are unsealed, allowing the infiltration of storm water and decreasing of rainwater runoff.\n\nThe presence of urban green elements favours pollution control as vegetation provides cleaner air by removing pollutants like nitrogen dioxide and microscopic particulate matter.\n\nUrban green spaces have an important value beyond their environmental benefits and aesthetical assets; exposure to greenspaces can restore physical and mental health of city dwellers by enhancing psychological health, and reducing blood pressure and stress levels.\n\nFor all these, the share of green urban areas is defined as the proportion of all vegetated patches within the city boundaries in relation to the total area. \n\n\n\nThis service was specifically created for UrbanGI Story Map, so its layer structure and attributes are tailored to the map’s needs.

The urban GI typology and its analysis are expected to feed into the urban sustainability by providing insights on the environmental performance of cities regarding urban GI. Accordingly, a cluster analysis has been performed to identify cities that have similar characteristics when it comes to certain urban green infrastructure elements. The clustering of the cities has been based on 9 parameters: share of green urban areas, degree of soil sealing, distribution of green urban areas, effective green infrastructure (urban hinterland), hotspot ratio (hinterland), terrestrial urban blue areas, low density areas, share of urban forest, and share of Natura 2000 sites.\n\nOnce the clusters have been identified, both the centroid of each cluster and the distance of each parameter to the centroid were calculated in order to highlight the main characteristics defining each group. Here, the centroid is the mean value of all indicators for those cities that fall within the cluster. Those parameters showing larger distances are the ones that make the difference and characterise the group.\n\nFrom this process, 8 clusters came out that can be defined by their main characteristics as ‘Fragmented cities’, ‘Green outskirts cities’, ‘Natural cities’, ‘Hotspot cities’, ‘Green cities’, ‘Green-grey sealed cities’, ‘Forest cities’, and ‘Natural blue cities’. \nThis service was specifically created for UrbanGI Story Map, so its layer structure and attributes are tailored to the map’s needs.