A Decision Framework for Integrated Green Grey Infrastructure (IGGIframe)

越来越多的人认识到，在我们的城镇中增加绿色空间对人类和环境都有好处，使其成为人类和野生动物更健康、更美好的栖息地。城市和城镇的绿化也可以帮助我们适应气候变化的压力，并且通常可以使英国经济受益，例如通过节省议会和水务公司的资金-从而为我们所依赖的其他服务提供更多资源。绿色基础设施的重点大多集中在建筑物和它们之间的绿色空间，如公园和城市树木。例如，绿色屋顶和雨水花园在我们的城市景观中越来越普遍，它们可以节省资金，同时改善环境。这些多功能的好处是如此显著，英国和世界各地的政府都在大力推动，鼓励在城市地区尽可能使用绿色基础设施方法，而不是传统的灰色方法。然而，我们城镇的某些部分必须保持灰色，如道路、铁路、桥梁、外围围栏、花园墙、海防和污水排放管道。但是，如果我们也可以绿化这些线性基础设施系统的一部分，为关键物种提供更多的栖息地，并改善我们和其他物种的环境质量呢？这包括增强硬基础设施提供的“多功能”或“生态系统服务”，这意味着使我们的灰色基础设施为社会发挥不止一种作用。如果我们的脚桥也可以作为门鼠的通道呢？或者我们的海堤可以为像海鲈鱼这样的商业鱼类吃的动物提供栖息地？像这样的解决方案可以实现多功能，并有助于进一步扩大政府的钱包，同时使我们的城镇更加环保。该项目将英国的案例研究打包成工具包，展示了绿色灰色资产的最佳实践示例。该工具包可以被自然英格兰、环境局、苏格兰环境保护局和威尔士自然资源等组织使用，以了解并展示将绿色基础设施原则应用于桥梁和河口墙等硬基础设施的成本和收益。使用该工具包将使他们能够为应用这些新颖的想法赢得高层的支持。我们将创建的工具包还将通过提供框架和案例研究来说明为什么以及如何这样做，从而帮助小型企业（如景观建筑公司）产生新的项目。大型咨询和工程公司（如Arup和Mott MacDonald）也将从该工具中受益，因为他们可以更好地向潜在客户（包括住房和码头开发商）提供确定的成本、设计标准和成功的记录。这也将为他们（和他们的客户）节省资金，因为他们可以参考这个项目的框架和案例研究，而不必在一个项目接一个项目的基础上搜索这些信息。

Increasing the amount of green space in our cities and towns is increasingly recognised as good for people and the environment, making it a healthier and nicer place for people and wildlife to live. Greening of our cities and towns can also help us adapt to the stresses of climate change and can often benefit the UK economy such as by saving councils and water companies money - thus providing more resources for other services we all depend on. Most of the emphasis on green infrastructure has focussed on buildings and the green spaces between them like parks and urban trees. For example, green roofs and rain gardens are increasingly common features in our urban landscape, which can save money and improve the environment at the same time. These multifunctional benefits are so significant that there is a big push by governments in the UK and worldwide to encourage the use of green infrastructure approaches over traditional grey methods in urban areas, where possible.However, some parts of our cities and towns must remain grey such as roads, railways, bridges, perimeter fencing, garden walls, sea defences and sewage outfall pipes. But what if we could also green parts of these linear infrastructure systems, to provide more habitat for key species and to improve the quality of the environment for us and other species? This involves enhancing the 'multifunctionality' or 'ecosystem services' provided by hard infrastructure - which means enabling our grey infrastructure to perform more than one role for society. What if our foot bridges can also act as corridors for door mice? Or our seawalls can provide habitat for animals that commercial fish like sea bass eat? Solutions like these enable multifunctionality and can help stretch the government's purse further and make our cities and towns greener at the same time. This project packages UK case studies that showcase best practice examples of greening our grey assets into a toolkit. The toolkit can be used by organisations such as Natural England, the Environment Agency, the Scottish Environmental Protection Agency and Natural Resources Wales to understand and present the costs and benefits of applying green infrastructure principles to hard infrastructure like bridges and estuary walls. Using the toolkit will enable them to win high-level support for applying these novel ideas. The toolkit we will create will also help small businesses such as landscape architecture firms generate new projects by providing a framework and case studies to demonstrate why and how to do this. Larger consultancy and engineering firms (e.g. Arup and Mott MacDonald) will also benefit from this tool, as they can better pitch opportunities, with firm costs, design criteria and a track record of success to prospective clients including housing and marina developers. It will also save them (and their clients) money as they can refer to the framework and case studies from this project, rather than having to search for this information on a project-by-project basis.