Environmental Engineering Reference
In-Depth Information
converting an agricultural site, but the costs are high and would
require a considerable portion of the city
s infrastructure budget.
The city council agrees that an alternative solution is needed.
Step 2 At a workshop, you learn about the utility of wetlands for
wastewater treatment. This helpful coincidence makes you realise
what a preliminary ecosystem services appraisal would have shown:
There is a wetland in your city close to an abandoned railroad track,
which is neither accessible nor attractive.
Step 3 You invite the workshop expert who tells you that the location and
condition of your wetland are suitable. He recommends you to
determine how much rainwater run-off can be redirected to the
wetland for rehabilitation,
'
flood control needs for
neighbouring settlements and to establish whether redirected waters
will reduce the volume
to examine
flowing to the old plant.
Step 4 A team of colleagues consults available data for assessing the
ecosystem services involved.
Step 5
Subsequent calculations reveal that this plan is considerably less
costly than constructing a new treatment plant.
Step 6
It has the added bene
t of liberating funds for other infrastructure
projects and will not increase citizens
'
water bills. The area is
uninhabited and unused, so an impact analysis on current users is
unnecessary.
A local NGO agrees to help plant the reconstructed wetland and you
convince the earthworks company to remove the railroad tracks to make
space for a cycling and walking path.
Conclusions
The need to replace or construct new infrastructure presents an opportunity
to examine ways to invest in more green, instead of grey, infrastructure or at
least redesign projects in order to minimise damages to ecosystem services
and biodiversity. There are many such opportunities in water provisioning
(catchment management instead of water treatment plants),
flood regulation
(
(flood plains or mangroves rather than dykes) and landslide prevention
(maintaining slopes covered with vegetation). Green infrastructure usually
provides additional ecosystem services such as recreational value (habitat
service)
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