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The recently approved Spanish Green Infrastructure (GI) Strategy obliges each autonomous community to identify and evaluate its own GI. This paper identifies and assesses the GI in the Community of Madrid at regional scale. This entailed, firstly, the identification of GI Principal Areas (GIPAS). This was followed by a spatial assessment of GI on the basis of three indicators: the Contribution to Ecosystem Services, the Combined Biodiversity Index and the Accessibility Index. After that, the correlations between GI assessment values and socioeconomic indicators were explored. The highest GI assessment values were located around the Sistema Central mountain range, and the lowest were in the Metropolitan Area and Henares Corridor. Finally, significant negative correlations were observed between the GI assessment values, population density and gross per capita income. The results of this study could provide useful support for the planning and decision-making required for the spatial definition of GI in the autonomous Community of Madrid. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Since the late twentieth century, the concept of green infrastructure (GI) has gained increasing recognition as a valuable approach to spatial planning. Although GI is an eminently spatial element, there are still few instances where this type of infrastructure has been given explicit definition and delimitation. It is therefore necessary to develop methods capable of defining these infrastructures through explicit spatial suitability analysis of their component dimensions. Here, we present a methodology based on the use of Geographic Information Systems (GIS) to identify and map potential areas for inclusion in a GI in the Henares Corridor (Madrid-Guadalajara, Spain). We analysed four factors (the contribution to ecosystem services, ecological connectivity, ecological status, and proximity/potential accessibility to the public), combined using multi-criteria evaluation techniques, thus offering different alternatives for defining and designing GI. The GI maps obtained show better results in less restrictive situations, which could be considered to articulate the existing protected areas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

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