Humans made a common habit and became dependent on others, the main dependency is on mother nature and making the most of its benefits which are provided in the forms of food, clean water, clean air, climate regulation, materials, etc. The known fact that all these commodities are free of cost and in unlimited supply available, humans are using them in abundant quantity without giving anything in return for retaining it, and this is not at all appreciated by intellectual humans. This is giving rise to humans who are nature lovers creating some alternative or substitute for such nature. This can be termed as natural building or rebuilding the green environment. Day-to-day innovations in science gave rise to smart technologies which can be used in building and maintaining green infrastructure. As known to all that the GI can be implemented in multiple sectors at various locations, the authors will be highlighting the sites where it can be implemented, which related technology will be used in deploying such GI, and what will be their benefits to humans.
TopWhat Is Green Infrastructure?
The term Green Infrastructure (GI) is as per the word itself the environment or surrounding to be green as mother nature. It is a humanmade nature which is built after getting benefits from natural one. To elaborate more in detail, it is termed as a subset of “Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure”, which is defined in standards such as SuRe, the Standard for Sustainable and Resilient Infrastructure. In simpler terms, researchers have mentioned infrastructure that has low carbon emissions like renewable energy infrastructures, public transportation systems, etc.
GI denotes any fruitful infrastructure which magnifies the natural environment by its direct or indirect contribution. It gives and associates the attachment with the important services of the ecosystem which gives or magnifies urban sustainability and the natural environment. It is also termed as a well-designed matrix of natural and semi-natural zones with other areas featuring systems and a well-connected to manage and provide an outcome which is a broader range of environmental services provided to humans. It includes the green spaces when compared to the forest environment, blue if aquatic territory, and other physical specifications of terrain including the sealine coastal area and marine lives. On earth, GI is present in urban and rural areas like roofs, rain gardens, parks, living walls, canopy cover, urban forests, community gardens, and parklands.
GI is progressing toward aqua management that safeguards and reinstates the natural cycle of water generation and maintaining the ecosystem. It is successful, inexpensive, and magnifies community well-being and quality of human life.
Due to its multifunctional character, every nation has given its definition of Green Infrastructure. Listing a few explanations below.
European Union (2013): Green Infrastructure can be broadly defined as a strategically planned network of high-quality natural and semi-natural areas with other environmental features, which is designed and managed to deliver a wide range of ecosystem services and protect biodiversity in both rural and urban settings. More specifically GI, being a spatial structure providing benefits from nature to people, aims to enhance nature’s ability to deliver multiple valuable ecosystem goods and services, such as clean air or water.
US Environmental Protection Agency (2008): Green Infrastructure is an approach to wet weather management that uses soils and vegetation to utilize, enhance and/or mimic the natural hydrological cycle processes of infiltration, evapotranspiration, and reuse.
Natural England (2009): Green Infrastructure includes established green spaces and new sites and should thread through, surround the built environment, and connect the urban area to its wider rural hinterland. Consequently, it needs to be delivered at all spatial scales from sub-regional to local neighborhood levels, accommodating both accessible natural green spaces within local communities and often much larger sites in the urban fringe and wider countryside.
In simpler words the researcher can quote it as Green Infrastructure (GI) is experimented application that provides economic, ecological, and social benefits through natural solutions. Preparing for investments to sustain and increase the alternate source for human society. It assists in alternate dependable solutions on infrastructure that is much costlier to build up and when nature can provide the same at a cheaper cost, which is more long-lasting returns for human society. GI is based on the concept that it shields and increases nature and natural processes, and many other advantages which are received by human society from mother nature. It is a building of a human-made nature.