Current State and Future Prospects of Green Infrastructure in Slovakia

Abstract: Rising urbanisation, global warming and climate change are posing a threat to the environment. This work is dedicated to green infrastructure as a concept that is helping to mitigate the negative effects on the environment. Focus will be held on Slovakia and its progressiveness in the field of green infrastructure. The aim of this thesis is to find whether there are any obstructions in the process of the development of green infrastructure and also, analyze and evaluate the current and past projects and strategies to reflect how Slovakia has progressed in this field in the past 10 years. As a method, qualitative method of structured interviews has been selected. The interviews were conducted with four experts within the field of green infrastructure in Slovakia. Multiple obstacles have been found that propose negative influences on the implementation of green infrastructure. The major obstacles are the slowly adapting legislation, ownership relations, undersized funding and lack of documentation. The prioritisation of the grey infrastructure instead of green and blue is also present, as well as the insufficient awareness of the general public about the benefits of green infrastructure. Slovakia's progression in the theoretical aspect of green infrastructure could be perceived as positive over the past 10 years. Multiple adapted strategies, either from the European Union or Slovakia's own, represent the improvement as well as the terminology that is more included in the law and policies. From an empirical standpoint, it is not possible to evaluate the progression, due to the complexity of green infrastructure and a lack of documentation. Multiple issues are affecting the state of green infrastructure in Slovakia, however, it seems that Slovakia could be on the right track into the future. By addressing these issues, Slovakia could strive for a more sustainable environment and development in the future.