Greenway planning: developing a landscape ecological network approach

Greenway planning has steadily grown in popularity in the planning and design professions as an efficient and socially desirable approach to open space planning. The purpose of this paper is to present a theoretical and methodological approach to greenway planning that accounts for regional biodiversity and systematizes the selection of greenway links. The approach used in this paper is based on the premise that a network of wildlife reserves and corridors should serve as the skeletal framework of a comprehensive greenway system. The paper draws from the knowledge bases of landscape ecology, conservation biology, network theory, and landscape planning. A case study is presented to demonstrate the approach using a forested region of Central New England.