WELCOME TO THE WEB'S LEADING RESOURCE FOR URBAN GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE!

We are confronted daily with evidence of environmental threats and there is no shortage of potential solutions, yet disturbing patterns of isolation and degradation continue to proliferate across the United States and around the world. Clearly, despite all we know, things are only getting worse. If we are to forge a more hopeful relationship between humanity and the environment, we must capture the public imagination in a more fundamental way. Green infrastructure is an emerging paradigm with the potential to hasten this appreciation. Simple decisions about how we provide for our most basic needs add up to profound impacts, so rethinking the composition of our communities is key to regional and global environmental health.

At the metropolitan scale, we need planning that is more dimensional and accessible to support a synthesis of urban and green agendas. A green infrastructure approach repositions the role of nature in and around the city from optional amenity and scenic backdrop to valued purveyor of ecosystem servicesand platform for more compact, vibrant communities. Green infrastructure is the dynamic complex of interdependent systems that animates our cities, and we must grow our capacity to measure and express the performance of these life support systems. Where this is happening, public and private investment flows naturally toward richly layered and interconnected assets that provide multi-functional benefits and enduring value.

At the scale of human experience, we need to inspire a profound shift in our aesthetic appreciation of the built environment. If we are to transform abstract green goodwill into broad adoption of truly regenerative results, the underlying performative aspects of sustainable landscapes must find expression in forms as resonant as society’s finest arts and most influential enterprises. Green infrastructure suggests a new breed of ‘high performance landscapes,’ integrating emerging ecological realities and urban infrastructural needs, that could reflect a contemporary ‘aesthetic of performance.’ The hybrid and assembled nature of high performance landscapes requires greater physical complexity and a more tactical, or operational, approach to practice. Resolution of these complex forces in forms that are legible and compelling demands elegant and resilient solutions.

GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE SYSTEMS AND FUNCTIONS
The planning and design framework explored on the Green Infrastructure Wiki is based on 6 interdependent systems that describe the social, circulatory, metabolic, biologic, hydrologic, and geologic functions of green infrastructure in the city. Resources associated with each function, including measures of performance, are collected on a Wiki page. Please add to our understanding about green infrastructure functions on their pages or add a new function (how to add a new function page).

GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE ASSETS
The physical elements that perform functions are a community's green infrastructure assets, and these can range in scale from a single tree to an entire watershed. Most assets can perform more than one function, and through planning and design this multi-dimensional quality can be amplified. Assets are most effective when linked to form a network of green infrastructure. Resources associated with each asset, including planning and design considerations, are collected on a Wiki page. Please share your insights about these assets on their pages or add a new asset (how to add a new asset page).

GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE BENEFITS
A richly connected network of multi-functional green infrastructure assets is a resilient and regenerative source of valuable community benefits, from water quality and climate change mitigation to economic stimulus and public health. Each benefit is introduced on a Wiki page. Please help characterize and refine their accounting on their pages or add a new benefit (how to add a new benefit).

CASE STUDIES AND RESOURCES
Looking for examples of planning and design for healthy cities and high performance landscapes? Metropolitan and region scale examples are catalogued at Case Studies: Planning and Policy. Site scale examples are catalogued here: Case Studies: High Performance Landscapes. Each case study considers system integration and performance and is cross-referenced to relevant functions and assets. Please contribute to the discussion of case studies on their Wiki pages and, most importantly, add new ones (how to add a new case study)! These primary resources, shared by green infrastructure enthusiasts around the globe, are the Wiki's greatest strength. The Wiki also has extensive and growing catalogs of general resources, including related organizations & initiatives, reports & publications, funding sources, and more.

URBAN GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE ONLINE CERTIFICATE PROGRAM
In the spring of 2010, Nate Cormier and Brice Maryman, founders of Green Infrastructure Wiki, will be launching an accredited certificate program in Urban Green Infrastructure through the University of Washington's College of Built Environments. This 10-credit program will spend one quarter each on the planning of urban green infrastructure networks and the design of high performance landscapes. For more information, please visit: http://www.outreach.washington.edu/ext/certificates/ugi/ugi_gen.asp.