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Paper short abstract

While global Green Infrastructure (GI) discourse emphasizes new nature-based approaches, traditional landscape is often reframed as GI in Japan. Do climate threats reinforce cultural values or reshape landscape visions? This paper explores GI as technical and cultural projects within global trends.

Paper long abstract

As concern over climate change intensifies, Green Infrastructure (GI) is gaining increased recognition as a key adaptation strategy. GI refers to systems such as urban forests, wetlands, and green seawalls that use ecological functions to deliver environmental, social, and climatic benefits in urban and regional planning. Globally, GI discourse often emphasizes new modes of working with nature, including urban greening initiatives and rain gardens that replace conventional gray infrastructures like concrete drainage systems. At the same time, however, existing ecological landscapes are being reinterpreted and integrated into GI initiatives.

In Japan, the resignification of historical and traditional landscapes forms an important part of the movement. Rice paddies, which form the mindscape of the Japanese countryside, are now recognized as functional water reservoirs, while traditional Japanese gardens in Kyoto are reframed as modes of rainwater management. National legislation that once positioned urban farmland as a space awaiting development now promotes it as an important part of urban space for biodiversity and water retention. Thus, alongside the projects to introduce new types of GI, there are deliberate efforts to resignify, conserve, and even integrate existing landscapes into contemporary infrastructure projects.

This phenomenon raises questions about how climate threats intertwine with cultural values to shape ideas about what the landscape should look like. Are climate threats being used to reinforce existing cultural values, or are they changing how people see and inhabit the landscape? What ecological value emerges when rice paddies are reframed as reservoirs for flood control? How does it inform policy, and how does policy shift from concrete works to GI and NbS (Nature-based Solutions) spreads responsibility across different actors? This paper explores GI as both a technical and a cultural project, situating Japan’s practices within global trends while highlighting their sociocultural distinctiveness.