FAQs

Urban greening is the conservation, restoration or creation of green infrastructure, including trees and vegetation in and around urban areas that benefit people, nature and the economy, and the soils and water to support it.

Urban greening includes:

• Private greening – residential front and backyards or commercial land.
• Streetscapes and transport corridors – street trees green walls, and major road or railways.
• Green and blue corridors – coastlines, rivers, wetlands.
• Urban parks – local parks, playgrounds, sportsgrounds and conservation areas.

Urban greening delivers a range of benefits for the community, environment and economy, including:

• reducing the urban heat island effect and social and economic impacts
• reducing energy costs and increasing property values
• supporting biodiversity and creating habitat for wildlife
• creating attractive places to encourage infill development and support recreation and tourism   
• improving mental and physical health
• increasing social cohesion and community engagement
• improving air quality and filtering air pollutants
• lowering runoff entering our waterways, which helps to prevent water pollution and reduce flooding  

Metropolitan Adelaide has almost 17% tree canopy cover, but this isn’t evenly distributed across our suburbs.

For Adelaide’s urban environment to thrive, we need a roadmap for increasing tree canopy, cooling the city and boosting biodiversity.

The strategy brings together state government, metropolitan councils, non-government organisations, industry peak bodies, research institutions, Kaurna people and the broader community to deliver practical greening actions that share the load and bridge the gaps between different stakeholders. Everyone has a different, but important, role to play in greening our city.

 The strategy identifies priority actions that:

• fill known gaps or scale up what is already working well
• unlock metropolitan-wide benefits
• harness cross-sector collaboration and/or co-investment.

There are lots of individual commitments from government, industry and community to improve urban greening across metropolitan Adelaide. However, there is no cohesive, overarching plan for metropolitan Adelaide.

We recognise the unique resources, knowledge and capabilities of different sectors. By partnering and creating a practical plan with shared action, Adelaide's 1st Urban Greening Strategy will bring organisations from different sectors together to deliver a greater impact than could be achieved individually.

The strategy was coordinated by Green Adelaide on behalf of the South Australian Government. It was co-created with government and non-government stakeholders who have a role in delivering, influencing and/or are interested in urban greening. For example, arborists, builders, engineers and designers, to sustainability officers and planners, researchers, and people looking after our local parks. 

Green infrastructure refers to the city's network of natural, designed or cultivated vegetated spaces located on both public and private land – from parks and street trees to green roofs, rain gardens and green laneways.

Urban greening delivers a range of social, environmental and economic benefits including improved physical health and mental wellbeing for communities, climate change adaptation, improved water management, enhanced biodiversity and habitat for native animals, a stronger economy, and a stronger sense of place.

Urban green cover is declining in many neighbourhoods across metropolitan Adelaide. It is vital that tree cover and quality green spaces are increased to help maintain our city’s liveability and enable our city to better adapt to a changing climate.

WSUD is an approach to design which considers how water is used, captured, and re-used by both people and nature. The approach factors in the full water cycle, or how water moves across our landscape, and how its use can be maximised.

Water is vital in creating liveable cities, supporting our environment, and reducing heat. WSUD is an important consideration for the Urban Greening Strategy as plants need water to survive and thrive and many of the community benefits of green infrastructure also depend on sufficient water.   

BSUD is an approach to design which considers how urban areas can make a positive contribution to biodiversity by providing essential habitat and food resources for native animals. This may be through maintaining or introducing habitat, facilitating safe movement of animals through wildlife corridors, minimising the threat from pest plants or animals, facilitating ecological processes (such as pollination), or improving human and nature interactions. 

BSUD links to measurable biodiversity outcomes, providing a flexible framework for developers and planners to consider how to provide biodiversity, alongside other considerations, early in the development process.

The SA Government has several roles in urban greening. As a land and infrastructure owner, it can lead by example in demonstrating best practice urban greening across metropolitan Adelaide, alongside water sensitive and biodiversity sensitive urban design. It also has regulatory responsibility for laws influencing urban greening, such as protection of existing mature trees and minimum requirements for new trees and green space.

Green Adelaide is working to create a cooler, greener, wilder and more climate-resilient metropolitan South Australia that celebrates our city’s unique culture.

They are South Australia's 1s government urban environmental organisation to deliver environmental outcomes amidst urbanisation and embed Kaurna traditional practices in delivery.

Green Adelaide was tasked by the State Government to coordinate the development of metropolitan Adelaide’s 1st Urban Greening Strategy. Green Adelaide will also play a coordinating role in the delivery of the final Urban Greening Strategy.

The draft Urban Greening Strategy is currently available for public feedback. Consultation is open until 28 June 2024. The strategy will be finalised based on the feedback by late 2024. Implementation of the strategy will be delivered from 2025 onwards.