Green infrastructure is a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas, including green and blue spaces and other ecosystems, designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services at various scales. Apart from the ecological functions, green infrastructure, as a planning tool, contributes to social and economic benefits, leading to the achievement of sustainable, resilient, inclusive and competitive urban areas. Despite recent developments, there is still no consensus among researchers and practitioners regarding the concept of green infrastructure as well as its implementation approaches, which makes it often difficult for urban planners and other professionals in the field to develop a robust green infrastructure in some parts of the world. To address this issue, an integrative literature review was conducted to identify which green infrastructure planning principles should be acknowledged in spatial planning practices to promote sustainability and resilience. As a result of this literature review, the most common eight green infrastructure planning principles were selected—connectivity, multifunctionality, applicability, integration, diversity, multiscale, governance, and continuity. These principles intend to promote and simplify the development and use of green infrastructure by different academic and implementation organizations and provide a more defined model for sustainable landscape management in order to help practitioners and decision makers during the conceptualization and planning of green infrastructure.

Ambassadors for Biodiversity (EmBio) is an ocean literacy research project that contributes to the improvement of literacy on marine and coastal biodiversity, namely encompassing the areas covered by the Natura 2000 Network, by promoting coastal and oceanic resources conservation and natural and cultural values preservation of the Portuguese western Atlantic coast. This project directly promotes the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and the implementation of 2030 Agenda developed by the United Nations and adopted by most countries in the world, which define the priorities and aspirations for global sustainable development until the year of 2030, mobilizing a world-wide effort to meet a common set of goals and objectives. This paper contributes to understanding how ocean literacy, and specifically the EmBio research project, fits into the international agenda for sustainable development and the SDGs and its targets. Through an analysis and a comparison between the project EmBio and the SDGs, it was possible to identify connections on 11 out of 17 goals and 31 out of 169 targets, with a special emphasis on the SDG 14—Life Below Water. The results highlight the relevance of this project and, especially, ocean literacy for the accomplishment of the SDGs.

Green infrastructure is a strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas that are designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services. It incorporates green and blue spaces and other physical features in terrestrial and marine areas. Despite the increase of green infrastructure planning in several regions of the world, such as Europe and North America, there is still a complexity and diversity associated with the concept of green infrastructure that influences the variance in approaches of green infrastructure planning. This research proposed a multi-criteria method that was organized in four steps for designing a green infrastructure for the municipality of Setúbal (Portugal) that efficiently integrated the ecological and social components in the planning and policymaking processes, as well as green infrastructure planning principles. The results show a green infrastructure that comprised around 91% of the territory of the case study, organized into two systems: the fundamental green infrastructure, which was related to the areas whose ecological interests were more favorable, and the urban green infrastructure, which aimed to enhance and intensify ecological processes in built-up areas. This approach focused on the protection of ecological functions, the preservation of the cultural and natural heritage, and the prevention of risks at a local level; it also followed several green infrastructure planning principles, namely, connectivity, multifunctionality, diversity, integration, and applicability.

The task of combining objectives, spatial planning instruments, and climate change adaptation targets is a complex endeavour that varies across countries. There is a call for a universal discussion on how spatial planning should respond to climate change challenges. To address this issue, this article delves into the approaches taken by Greece, Spain, Portugal, and Poland, aiming to explore how spatial planning instruments support climate change adaptation goals. The authors, based on a jointly extracted questionnaire, identified what they consider to be the most relevant examples of instruments to use to ensure the integration of spatial planning objectives and the response to climate challenges. The identified solutions are compared in detail. Three key spatial planning themes emerged in this study: investment in renewable energy, the development and preservation of green infrastructure, and the protection of coastal zones. This article examines the systemic solutions found in these countries, discusses the role of both classical and sectoral spatial planning instruments, and identifies the level of public authority responsible for key interventions. It shows that instruments developed at the supra-local level should support local authorities by providing them with legal and substantive arguments for developing solutions relevant to climate challenges.

Green infrastructure planning has been receiving great attention since the end of the last century. Although green infrastructure has been known for its ability to respond to a wide range of environmental, social, and economic challenges, the concept and associated implementation measures are still being discussed among researchers, decision-makers, and practitioners. To help these discussions, several authors have identified green infrastructure planning principles to help these professional with planning procedures. However the perception of practitioners regarding these principles was never taken into consideration. Because of this, the purpose of this research is to learn about the priorities of urban planners regarding green infrastructure planning principles and their integration into spatial planning. To achieve this, an Analytic Hierarchy Process methodology was applied to urban planners working in the 17 municipalities of Lisbon Metropolitan Area, in order to prioritize the green infrastructure planning principles influencing GI design and development in urban areas. Experts were asked to prioritize eight primary green infrastructure planning principles: connectivity, multi-functionality, applicability, integration, diversity, multiscale, governance, and continuity. The results show that the most important green infrastructure planning principle for practitioners is connectivity, followed by multifunctionality and applicability. Both integration and multiscale principles were considered more important in municipalities with predominantly urban features.

Marine litter has been considered one of the most serious global challenges, requiring urgent action by governmental bodies, especially in African Small Island Developing States (SIDS), where resources and research are limited. In addition to this, waste management and environmental education and ocean literacy programs in schools are scarce, with islands suffering more seriously from these problems. Despite the amount of literature regarding causes and impacts of marine litter, there is still not enough research conducted concerning the public perceptions on both the problem and the potential solutions. This is even more noticeable in African developing countries, where resources and research are scarce. Perception plays a key role for ecosystem management and conservation policies. This study intends to explore the perceptions of local island fishing communities in Cape Verde regarding marine litter, in order to contribute for an improvement of marine ecosystem management and development of conservation policies. To achieve that, two participatory sessions were conducted in two communities in the island of Santiago—Porto Mosquito and Porto Gouveia—where brainstorming and active listening were used to create shared and authentic spaces for dialogue between the members of the community. Results show that the population of both communities were very aware of the marine litter problem. They were able to identify the lack of a proper waste management system in the island and the inappropriate behaviours of the population as the main causes of this problem. Equipment damages and the presence of plastic inside the fish were the most relevant impacts identified by the participants. These findings reinforce previous research on the importance of public engagement and environmental education to contribute to the conservation of marine ecosystems and to build a strong collaborative ocean governance.