Urban open and green spaces : is Malta planning and designing them to increase resilience?

Abstract

2030 has been set as the target for achieving most of the sustainable development goals and in this path urban open and green spaces have been identified as drivers and accelerators for increasing resilience and adapting cities to climate change. The pandemic has acted as a further catalyst for the reorganization and re-assessment of the role of open spaces. This work focuses on the system of urban open and green spaces whose planning and design, through a systemic approach, can address current and future urban challenges such as climate change. The main aim is to provide local decision-makers with urban open and green spaces planning and design principles based on a mixed-method approach adopting Malta as a case-study. Findings suggest that EU and international strategies advocate open and green spaces as an indisputable requirement for increasing resilience, energy sustainability and adaptive capacity of urban systems. However, in comparison, there is still scope for improvement when considering Malta’s planning framework. While there is a growing sentiment for the appreciation and need of green open spaces from the users, important characteristics are still lacking within the planning processes.