What is a Blue-Green City?
A Blue-Green City aims to recreate a naturally-oriented water cycle while contributing to the amenity of the city by bringing water management and green infrastructure together. This is achieved by combining and protecting the hydrological and ecological values of the urban landscape while providing resilient and adaptive measures to deal with flood events. Blue-Green Cities generate a multitude of environmental, ecological, socio-cultural and economic benefits. The innovative Blue-Green approach to water management in the city aims to satisfy the demands of urban drainage and planning via coherent and integrated strategies, and places value on the connection and interaction between blue and green assets.
Figure. Comparison of the hydrologic (water cycle) and environmental (streetscape) attributes in conventional (upper) and Blue-Green Cities.
The Blue-Green Cities image can be viewed as a pdf 
Blue-Green Cities aim to reintroduce the natural water cycle into urban environments and provide effective measures to manage fluvial (river), coastal, and pluvial (urban runoff or surface water) flooding.
Blue-Green Cities favour the holistic approach and aim for interdisciplinary cooperation in water management, urban design, and landscape planning. Community understanding, interaction and involvement in the evolution of Blue-Green design are actively promoted. Blue-Green Cities typically incorporate sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS), a term used in the United Kingdom, known as water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) in Australia, and low-impact development or best management practice (BMP) in the United States.
Read more about Blue-Green Cities in our Wikipedia entry.
Is Portland a Blue-Green City?
Read more about our
Portland fact-finding mission.