Despite the best available scientific knowledge and a range of recommendations, strategies, and plans, the practice of adapting to climate change in our urban areas still commonly eludes us.

Green infrastructure is one of the key contemporary adaptation options gaining critical momentum for addressing both urbanisation impacts and climate change impacts in urban areas. By definition, green infrastructure refers to the range of living green elements and water elements within a city – though in practice, generally focusses on trees and water-sensitive urban design. Though the benefits of trees and associated green infrastructure elements is not new, the growing impetus to increase green infrastructure in our urban areas as an adaptation strategy, has occurred following growing concern about the interactions of urbanisation and climate change impacts, together with awareness raised by movements such as the 202020 Vision’s national tour and benchmarking report in 2014 and 2015, and a subsequent Federal government announcement in early 2016 about setting national targets for canopy cover in our urban centres.

Based on four recent green infrastructure projects conducted for local urban councils in Adelaide, South Australia, we will discuss some of our learnings relating to transforming awareness in to action, the practicalities of increasing investment, and the implications for end-users.