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Many cities are turning to greening efforts to increase resilience, but such efforts often favor privileged groups, thereby resulting in injustices. In this systematic review, we analyze 71 place-based studies of green infrastructure (GI) justice in cities worldwide. We draw from environmental justice scholarship, as well as climate and water justice literature to assess the state-of-the-art knowledge of urban GI justice. We examine the way GI is researched to improve our understanding of the types of injustices that exist in GI planning, siting, and implementation, providing rich insights into why injustices exist and pathways to address GI injustice. We find that research on GI justice in cities is growing and expanding its scope in terms of both the types of justice issues analyzed, and the groups of people excluded from the benefits of GI. We find that GI injustice stems from a history of unequal investment and non-participatory decision-making processes, where the unequal distribution of GI is only the “tip of the iceberg”. To address GI injustice around distribution, cities would have to offset a decades-long lack of investment and inclusivity in decision-making processes. Pathways to achieve GI justice point to assessing unbalanced power structures, directing continuous funding to community engagement programs and greening efforts, leveraging existing infrastructure through the multifunctionality of GI, and dedicating funding mechanisms for safety and maintenance. Interdisciplinary and transdisciplinary research is needed to integrate the different dimensions of GI that are tailored to the community on the ground, and to monitor progress toward justice.

Highlights • The U.S. and Mexico have engaged in hydrodiplomacy for more than 75 years. • Treaties and binational institutions are strong foundations to ground and guide hydrodiplomacy efforts. • Adaptive governance principles have been important to achieving the major turning points in U.S.-Mexico hydrodiplomacy., The United States and Mexico have engaged in hydrodiplomacy—a practice of transboundary water management that blends water diplomacy and science diplomacy--for more than 75 years, since the adoption of the Treaty of 1944 and the creation of the International Boundary and Water Commission. We examine six major turning points in U.S.-Mexico hydrodiplomacy to ascertain the key factors in the region’s history of resolving transboundary water issues. We find that recognized adaptive governance indicators—such as social learning, sustained relationships, flexible governance mechanisms, and state and non-state networks are essential elements of hydrodiplomacy. Our research suggests that robust and foundational institutions comprise another key indicator of adaptive governance specifically in transboundary contexts. A commitment to both science and diplomacy have been important components underlying the effectiveness of hydrodiplomacy in the border region. Binational networks involving diverse state and non-state actors at multiple scales have increasingly played a pivotal role in shaping desirable hydrodiplomatic outcomes in the region.

Water security has emerged as a major framing template in environmental governance and resource management. The term and underlying concepts have attracted the attention of governmental and nongovernmental organizations, private industry, and the academy in policy and practice. Notwithstanding the palpable rise in its use, a comprehensive understanding of how water security is conceptualized and employed in different contexts around the world is limited. We aim to address this gap, by assessing how water security is considered, articulated, and operationalized in place-based studies. We employ a two-part methodological approach that includes (1) a systematic analysis of 124 articles, books, and book chapters published between 2010-2015 using a standardized coding framework to examine trends and patterns in place-based water security research, and (2) an analysis of the treatment of governance as a subset of this body of research to reveal how water governance is framed and understood in place-based water security scholarship. We find broad diffusion of water security across geographic regions and scales, expansive framing of water security, and evolving approaches to indicator formulation. The narratives around future pathways for governance practices include the promotion of participatory processes, solutions that engage both quantitative and qualitative methods, and a mix of both hard- and soft-path approaches to achieve water security. The persistent diversity in perspectives and applications of water security suggests that scholars adapt the concept to the contexts of the cases they are studying. The variation in how water security is utilized in different regions and spatial scales underscores the importance of incorporating community context in how we understand and employ water security. By empirically assessing the diversity and utility of water-security analyses, highlighting regional differences, and tracing evolving conceptions over time, our research can inform future project design, policy-making, and management from the international to the local levels.