Green Infrastructures: a sustainable management approach

Though urban trees are increasingly recognized as more than just green relief amongst buildings and other built (grey) infrastructure of cities, the investments in planning and managing urban trees, grown on public land, compete for limited local government funds in many cities around the world. Strengthening green infrastructure is fundamentally about making the most of existing assets and it can transform the quality of places. A strategic approach to the management of GI aimed to maximize tree growth and physiological performance can have a profound effect – not only on the way a place performs, physically and economically, but also the health of those who live and work there. Unfortunately, the approach in too many cities has been to remove trees rather than to find ways to redesign structures to be compatible with trees. Actually, green infrastructure quality and duration depends initial planning and on appropriate long-term management and maintenance of the site’s vegetation accompanied by maintenance schedules, to ensure that these interventions continue to be effective in the future. The presentation will then put emphasis on the relations between technical infrastructures and vegetation. It’s important to improve all aspects about site conditions and how select tree species well-adapted to the urban environment. This needs to be based on comprehensive inventories of the urban tree resource and should assess the aesthetic, social, environmental and economic functions of the urban forest. New techniques and new soils to improve tree growth and to avoid tree conflicts with the built environment will be discussed with a special emphasis on soil covering materials.