The nature of a park – managing complexity and unpredictability for the long term

Global challenges of climate change and biodiversity loss increase demands on urban green infrastructure (GI) to provide increasingly wide ranges of functions and services. Academia, policy and practice call for long-term perspectives to ensure the sustainability of GI and address solutions by adopting approaches inspired by nature. Meanwhile, current trends in contracted out park management entail attention to economic and technical aspects, overlooking long-term GI development. The interface between long-term ambitions and short-term operational GI practice is addressed through the case of a planned park in Täby municipality, Sweden. The case represents an ambition to integrate design, construction and management of high biodiversity GI through a ‘design-by-management’ approach, resting on ideas of continuous and adaptive vegetation development after the initial construction. Workshops were conducted with responsible stakeholders in project management, park management and nature management, providing insight into current contexts and future demands of GI establishment and management. Results reveal differences in contract management approaches depending on landscape typology – namely, ‘parks’ and ‘nature’. Project and park managers work with an approach based on adherence to rigid formal documents where dynamics and uncertainty are understood as liabilities. Conversely, nature managers work with strategic development goals as a foundation for a joint view with responsible contractors. The case suggests that existing organizational practices in park construction and maintenance make it difficult to fully embrace the complexity and uncertainty of the intended processes. However, introducing GI management in early design phases offers valuable opportunities to address these challenges strategically, supporting long term sustainability. • Park maintenance regimes are currently challenged by contradictory demands. • Hardscape logics turns unpredictability into a liability in park maintenance. • Nature-based designs need to acknowledge their context in a management regime. • Inclusion of management in early design stages is pivotal for systemic integration.