Finding space for nature in cities: the considerable potential of redundant car parking

Nature-based solutions (NBS) are crucial for addressing urban challenges like heatwaves, flooding, and biodiversity loss. This paper proposes converting redundant street parking into biodiverse green space as a scalable approach to achieving sustainability targets. A case study in Melbourne, Australia, demonstrates that up to half of street parking could be accommodated in existing garages, freeing substantial land for greening and yielding significant benefits in tree canopy cover, stormwater management, and ecological connectivity, thus contributing substantially towards the city's NBS targets. This approach is widely applicable to cities with ample off-street parking.

Thami Croeser, Georgia E. Garrard, Casey Visintin, Holly Kirk, Alessandro Ossola, Casey Furlong, Rebecca Clements, Andrew Butt, Elizabeth Taylor, Sarah A. Bekessy