How about water? Urban blue infrastructure management in Romania

Decades of economic development and urbanization have led to strong transformations of blue infrastructure, with significant quality degradation and conversions from natural land cover to other human shaped land uses. While critically threatened, blue infrastructure in urban areas is re-emerging as an important solution that contributes to human well-being through provisioning, regulating and cultural ecosystem services. Our study aims to assess the distribution and the availability of urban blue infrastructure in Romanian cities, considered as a first step in understanding the interactions among major urban infrastructures. We found a low availability of the blue infrastructure in Romanian cities, which could have been caused by significant transformations such as improvements against flooding and conversions to built-up land. Furthermore, we identify associations between cities' share of blue infrastructure and their socio-economic and geographic characteristics. We found that the surface of blue infrastructure is shaped by both morphological features and historical legacies. Our study therefore suggests how such results could be used to enhance the multi-functionality of blue infrastructure to provide social-ecological and economic benefits in densely urbanised areas. •Urban blue infrastructure has low availability in Romania.•Urban blue infrastructure is shaped by a city's morphological features.•The post-socialist period led to the extension of urban blue infrastructure.•Reliable data about urban blue infrastructure is critical for enhancing its multifunctionality.