We are all products of our time, and our mindsets incontestably influence our built environment.
For instance, in Ancient Egypt, workers were very, very careful to measure accurately. Once Pharaoh Khufu of Great Pyramid fame (it was his tomb) had established the Royal Egyptian Cubit, workers were required to use it or die.
Yes, literally: Get your units wrong and you might hang for it.
Sure, we like accuracy today — measure twice, cut once and all that — but we can agree they had an extra dose of motivation 5,000 years ago. And it was effective; the Great Pyramid’s four sides are equal to within .05 percent of one another.
Good on you, Khufu?
Today we’re less worried about royal impalement, of course, but climate change and urban density bring their own dangers to the table. They are the driving factors that influence our built environment.
If we want to face them head-on, we need to prioritize solutions, and vis-à-vis our cities, that means green infrastructure. Green roofs, rain gardens, and pollinator oases are all essential to the future.
Why Green Infrastructure?
Before the why, let’s tackle the what. What is green infrastructure (GI)?
In a nutshell, this overarching term refers to a network of green spaces that work with, rather than against, nature to make human spaces more livable. Green infrastructure helps prevent flooding, first and foremost, and thus the devastating effects stormwater can have on our cities.
Plants have been managing water effectively for millions of years, after all. Their extensive roots and advanced respiration systems are better than a storm drain could ever be at retaining, detaining, and releasing water.
They’ve been cooling the environment, fixing carbon, and filtering pollution from the air for millennia as well. As if that’s not enough, they also give animals a home. They beautify spaces. They calm human bodies and minds.
The real question is, why not green infrastructure?
GI Benefits
More specifically, green infrastructure can help us with:
- Stormwater management: Although green infrastructure is not restricted to plants, per se, they do a lot of the heavy lifting that manmade products just can’t match, especially when it comes to capturing overabundant precipitation.
- Pollution management: Plants and filtering media help pull pollutants and disease out of water before it reaches the ground and makes its way into the water supply.
- Energy reduction: Green roofs and living surfaces can help reduce energy use by cooling our environments naturally.
- Heat mitigation: The urban heat island effect is the tendency of cities to absorb and retain heat, so that they are significantly hotter than surrounding areas. It’s bad for human health, air quality, and animals, but plants can help cool things off.
- Pollinator and animal sanctuaries: Insects and animals often find the hard lines and exposed surfaces of cities unlivable, but providing green spaces brings them back in.
You can’t beat the argument for urban beautification, either. People love green spaces, plain and simple. We need more of them, so GI does major double duty when it not only makes our spaces more sustainable, but it also makes them more joyful to be in.
Types of Green Infrastructure
A full understanding of what green infrastructure means today requires also knowing what forms it can take. Although that’s a question too broad to answer in a single blog post, the basic types include the following.
Green Roofs and Roof Gardens
While similar, green roofs and roof gardens are slightly different.
The first is an expanse of typically low-profile plants that are capable both of absorbing lots of water and living without it for extended periods of time. As such, green roofs minimize the need for irrigation while maximizing the ability of the roof to manage precipitation.
A roof garden is what it sounds like: a garden on a rooftop. These often embrace human foot traffic, providing soul-satisfying places to rest a while, even 500 feet in the sky.
Rain Gardens
Again, it’s right there in the name. A rain garden manages rain — or more specifically, any form of precipitation that might otherwise become stormwater — through the judicious use of depressions in the ground, filtering products, and plants.
Pollinator Gardens
At Ecogardens, you know we love our pollinators. Creating urban spaces for them to hang out gives us great pleasure.
Pollinators do us major favors beyond looking cute, though. They consume pests, ensure the fruiting of our trees and crops, are essential to many of our medicines, and help maintain the health of ecosystems as a whole.
Blue Roofs
Yes, roofs can be blue … in the sense that they manage stormwater without the help of plants. Blue roofs are a type of green infrastructure that many have embraced in recent years.
Cities Leading the Green Infrastructure Charge
We would be dishonest if we claimed not to think some places are doing GI better than others. Sure, you’ve got Germany and Singapore and Australia, all of which are leaders in green roofs, but America is in there with the best of them.
Not only do we do green roofs well, we’re leaders in other types of urban greening too, such as the aforementioned pollinator gardens, rain gardens, and so on.
And we’d be doubly dishonest if we claimed not to love Chicago and Grand Rapids best.
Chicago: On the Cutting Edge of Green Roofs
The Windy City has been a leader in GI for decades. It is one of the pioneering metro areas to take the potential of rooftop infrastructure seriously. Nearly two decades ago, it led the nation in green roof square footage.
Today, given its extensive examples of GI, it serves as a case study for which types of roofs may best mitigate the urban heat island effect.
We’re proud to have worked with the city for so many years.
Grand Rapids: A Rising Green Infrastructure Star
Grand Rapids is a rising star in the sense that while it is smaller than other cities prioritizing GI, it is no less fierce in its pursuit.
Not only has it hosted conferences about the transition away from grey infrastructure (think your standard dike and storm drain approach), but it also has big plans to clean up its waterways, put green roofs on higher education buildings, and implement stormwater credit trading programs.
Together, we’re helping them mitigate urban flooding and beautify spaces throughout the city, and we’re so happy to get to do it.
Work With Ecogardens Today
Ready to toss your hat into the green infrastructure ring? We’re ready to help.
All you have to do is reach out for a consultation today.