ADVANCING GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE AND ECOSYSTEM SERVICES THROUGH THE SITES RATING SYSTEM

Abstract

Cities and communities around the world face increasingly difficult challenges in creating efficient transit systems, reducing urban heat island effects, and addressing the ever-rising demand for clean water and air, open space, and wildlife habitat. Green building practices can alleviate many of these pressures through land, energy, and water conserving technologies. What is built on the land profoundly impacts ecological systems as well as the health, safety, and welfare of communities. The Sustainable SITES Initiative (R) (SITES (R)) is based on the understanding that landscapes are a crucial element of the built environment and can be designed and maintained to avoid, mitigate, and even reverse the common detrimental impacts of development and climate change. Unlike buildings that typically depreciate over time, sustainable landscapes appreciate in value by continuing to provide multiple benefits such as managing stormwater, conserving resources, reducing pollution, and improving human health and well-being. Whether the site is an urban plaza, city park, university campus, or corporate headquarters, landscapes can be ecologically resilient places better able to withstand and recover from episodic floods, droughts, wildfires, and other catastrophic events. Using an ecosystem services framework, the SITES Rating System is presented as an alternative and more effective approach to conventional site-design practices.