Climate adaptation through green and blue infrastructures in urban areas

Urban green infrastructure is increasingly recognized as a key component in improving environmental quality and everyday livability in cities. Beyond parks, urban greenery, including tree cover, neighborhood green spaces, and everyday exposure to vegetation, plays an important role in supporting climate adaptation, public health, and well-being. However, these benefits are often unevenly distributed, reflecting socio-spatial inequalities within the urban fabric. This thesis explores the spatial distribution of urban green infrastructure in the city of Bilbao through the application of the 3–30–300 rule, a framework that defines minimum conditions for daily access to green environments. The study adopts a GIS-based approach integrating spatial datasets related to land use, tree cover, buildings, mobility networks, and population characteristics. The analysis is conducted at building scale to capture patterns of access to green spaces in everyday urban contexts. In parallel, the study examines the spatial distribution of population groups more sensitive to environmental conditions, particularly children, adolescents, and older adults. By combining indicators of green accessibility with demographic vulnerability, the research adopts an environmental justice perspective, highlighting where limited access to urban greenery overlaps with socially sensitive contexts. Rather than measuring direct health outcomes, the thesis develops a spatial decision-support framework to identify cumulative green deficits and potential environmental inequalities. The results provide a foundation for identifying priority areas for intervention and inform a design exploration focused on strengthening green equity through targeted urban retrofit strategies. The proposed approach is transferable to other compact urban contexts and contributes to discussions on environmental justice and nature-based planning in contemporary cities.