Green and Blue Infrastructure (GBI) in an agricultural setting

There is significant interest in the use of Green and Blue Infrastructures (GBI) (nature-based management measures) to replace hard engineering forms of intervention in land management (grey infrastructure). Such approaches are encouraged through the EU Green Infrastructure Strategy. The Strategy relies on other policies to reach its desired aims, in agricultural land, particularly on the environmental elements of the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP). This paper describes a two-stage analysis examining the likelihood of the CAP delivering GBI targets. First, EU level policies are examined in order to define the types of GBI features recognised and encouraged by EU policies. Secondly, the implementation choices in three example member states are examined.