Green Infrastructure

Green Infrastructure Systems:

Green Infrastructure systems can be categorized into a few bigger groups: Hardscapes (man-made, built environments), Softscapes (involving plants and other organisms), and Methodologies (ways of doing things).

Hardscapes:

Orientation

In the Northern Hemisphere, the sun rises from the East, peaks the South, and sets on the West. So placing a window at the south side of a building may allow the most sun to enter a building directly. A window placed on the north side, on the other hand, will provide great indirect light throughout the day. Using this knowledge, one can collect solar heat effectively at location that matters, or provide a brightly lit workspace without glare— more sun is not always better.

Thermal Mass

Thermal mass is great at maintaining constant temperature. When used strategically, it can collect solar heat and release it slowly when the ambient temperature drops. This helps to regulate temperature in a place that experiences extreme temperature changes, or in a sunny but chilly climate.

Transportation Infrastructure

An effective transportation infrastructure is one that maximizes usage and capacity with an efficient power source. A number of countries around the world has been experiencing with high speed rail, with most of them located in European or Asian countries. Some can even achieve 220 miles per hour, saving time and fuel that are otherwise required by automobiles.

Pavements

Street pavements takes up a large area of physical footprint in urban settings. When it rains, most of the raindrops that falls onto the streets flows towards the street curb, down the road and into the sewer. If it is a heavy storm, lots of water suddenly flows into the sewer systems and sometimes the system cannot handle the volume of water and overflows (which is why you shouldn't swim in some rivers if it had rained recently). A good storm water management system can eliminate this problem. Thinking about the pavement material can contribute greatly to a good storm water management system.

Here are some of the common paving materials and their pros and cons:

Cobblestone is common to older cities. Sometimes there are existing cobblestone paving that have been covered over by asphalt.

• Pros: localized repair, long lasting (100+ years), allows water drainage better than asphalt, can be swept by current street sweepers.

• Cons: less smooth (may be good for slowing down traffic in residential streets), more initial first cost

Asphalt paving came into fashion in the early 1900’s, when the oil industry needed somewhere to put the by-product of oil refining, and the auto industry wanted a smoother driving surface than cobblestone. Thus asphalt paved street happened.

• Pros: cheap and quick installation, utilizes the by-product of other manufacturing process, smooth surface, dark color provides high contrast for road markings (safer for motorists), recyclable.

• Cons: requires constant maintenance in regions with constant freeze/thaw cycle, impervious to surface water, dark color contributes to urban heat island effect

Concrete street paving can be found in area with heavy duty traffic, since it can be very durable if properly designed and maintained

• Pros: can be recycled, durable, smooth surface

• Cons: Impervious to surface water, requires annual maintenance in regions with cold winters

Pervious Concrete, in a nutshell, is concrete with gaps (imagine rice crispy treats) to allow water to flow through.

• Pros: good water retention, durable if maintained properly, provides good traction

• Cons: needs more constant maintenance than asphalt or regular concrete, requires trained installers

Other possibilities (but not limited to this): Solar roadway

Softscapes:

Groundcover

Current practice:

Ground plant choice and maintenance practice based primarily on visual effect: single-species plant growth (lawn grass), which results in raking and the disposal of grass clipping and fall leave again for visual effect. But doing so reduces the fertility of soil that then requires artificial fertilizer. To maintain the single specie lawn, constant physical weeding or chemical poisoning is required, with increased hazard to pollute the greater environment or children and pets.

Also, lawn grass are typically not native to the area of planting, which results in the need of regular watering during the dry season.

Alternate practice:

Plant a variety of native species that can serve as food for human, insects, or city animals. Doing so will increase the biodiversity with several advantages: if one disease strike and kills off all of one specie, the rest are still there. The variety of living creatures reduces the need of artificial pesticide with their natural predators.

Plant food for human consumption- fresh vegetables, reduces living costs.

Visual appeal of having constant rotating stock of specimens in bloom and in fruit.

Planting as barrier (psychological or physical) to define land ownership. Can be used with fence or in place of fence

Vertical Planting

Current Practice:

Not common- older houses have vines and ivy, or accidental plants in gutters or wall crevices.

Suggested Practice:

Living wall (vines/a.k.a. plants that likes to climb upward): Use plants to buffer weather. Vines can be used to provide shade and evaporative cooling for the house, windbreak and possible food production (for human: grapes, hops, kiwi, gourds, peas, for animals: any flowering and berry bearing plants will do).

Living wall (plants in a vertical configuration): plant choice will be more limited to plants that are hardy to the area, do not require constant maintenance (since they are likely to be difficult to access), and wind resistant.

Roof Planting

Current Practice:

Not common- older building with accidental plants in flat roof tops due to debris collected from lack of maintenance.

Suggested Practice:

Consciously designed and maintained vegetated roofing to retain storm water and prevent flooding downstream. The vegetated roofing layer can also prolong life of the building waterproofing layer. If desired, food crops can be grown as well.

Methedologies:

Water Management

According to EPA, The average American family of four uses 400 gallons of water per day. To meet this demand, we have been pumping water from lakes, rivers, and the ground. In an urban setting, the water gets pumped to water treatment plants, then piped to our homes, through a fixture and then flows straight into the sewer pipes to either be treated in a sewage treatment plant, or straight into a body of water to start the natural process of recycling via evaporation and raining. But compared to the way it happened thousands of years ago, now much less water goes through the filtering process by percolating through the ground, resulting a much lower water table. This lack of ground water recharge, combined with less surface vegetation and more impervious surfaces, reduces the ground's capacity to retain water. As a result, cities tend to flood during heavy rain events, and bare soil and trash are washed away, further clogging the already overloaded sewer system. Cities are then forced to build larger sewage treatment plants to meet the rising demand, as we demand more and more convenience in our daily lives by using more water to irrigate our lawns, in-suite bathrooms, or leaving the tap running while washing our hands.

A few ways to manage our water better:

• Reduce water usage at homes by switching to more efficient fixttures and enforce good habits.

• Reduce water usage for irrigation by planting plants suitable for local climate

• Improve water retention capacity of the ground by reducing impervious surfaces like monolithic concrete or asphalt pavements.

Waste Management

A few ways to manage our waste better:

• Reduce waste by starting with a better quality product, access to means of repair before replace

• Reuse or re-purpose

• Eliminate the need for a single function tool. For example, a toaster oven can make toasts, bake a small batch of cookies, and be used as a broiler, while an upright toaster can only make toasts.

• Recycle: of course, there are times when something is beyond repair and cannot be reused any more.

Knowledge Transfer

Provide effective means of knowledge transfer, and also understanding how you learn the best yourself!

• Visual: videos, books, seminars

• Physical: work shops, work sessions, DIYs

• Audio: Podcasts, radio, or other types of recordings