Introduction

The assemblage of green open spaces and natural landforms within cities are crucial to sustainable urbanization, thus motivating attention to Green infrastructure (GI). GI here refers to ‘green spaces and other environmental features’, across different spatial scales that deliver goods and services associated with the sustenance of human beings. This paper considers research on urban green infrastructure in Nigeria. Based on the literature review, it focuses on outcomes of studies dealing with different components of green infrastructure within cities – domestic gardens, parks, green roofs, vertical greening systems, urban forests, also including meso-scale urban vegetation cover.

Drawing attention to urban GI is important because its benefits and potentials are usually not given the deserved priority in planning and development processes in cities within sub-Sahara Africa, including Nigeria. There is still predominantly ‘Western’ perspective is certain GI framings, partly because they are still insufficiently researched for urban spaces in sub-Saharan Africa. Current urbanization trends and physical development patterns in Nigeria provide a window of opportunity that should be adequately informed by knowledge on green infrastructure. The challenge of adapting to climate change in Nigeria compels a situation where GI goes from ‘remain[ing] essentially a concept… [to] definitive action’ that is informed by information on state of the art nationally.

To address the knowledge gap, this review is guided by the overarching research question: what are the practices, benefits, disadvantages, barriers, and opportunities on different kinds of green spaces in Nigeria, as reported in literature? In answering the question, this review seeks to aggregate empirical evidence from research undertaken on urban GI in Nigeria, and where applicable, putting it in the context of sub-Sahara Africa. It also helps to determine the current status of research in Nigeria and aggregate relevant examples scattered in disparate literature.