What is Green Infrastructure?
Green Infrastructure is an approach that incorporates both the natural environment and engineered systems to create ecological corridors, preserve the natural water cycle and provide a wide array of benefits to people and wildlife.
Green infrastructure relates to solutions that can be applied on different scales from a building level to a broader landscape level. These practices include green roofs, green walls, infiltration planters, trees and rainwater harvesting systems in urban areas.
Green Infrastructure Projects
Green Lamp Post
- A new Green Infrastructure concept was introduced in Marsa-Ħamrun Bypass. This concept was composed of the supply, installation and maintenance of green lamp posts.
- Using existing lamppost columns is seen as a more efficient way of increasing the coverage of plants and greenary in highly urbanized areas.
- Can be consired as a ‘Pollution relief’ pillar that is full of plants to mitigate pollution (trapping particulate matter (PM) and Carbon).
- In this project the smart pillar is being watered using an automatic irrigation system.
Green Walls
- Green walls financed and planned by AM were installed in Industrial Areas (Mosta, Kordin & Marsa), Marsa- Ħamrun Bypass and in Raħal Gdid.
- These projects were carried out in collaboration with INDIS Malta, Infrastructure Malta and Paola Local Council.
- Over 460 metres were covered with a variety of ornamental plants in five different locatities.
- Over twelve variety of plants are used in every green wall including the indigneous: Rosmarinus officinalis, Teucrium fruticans & Santolina spp.
Projects Benefits
- Enhancement of the site’s aesthetic value;
- Can also serve to create privacy (a sense of enclosure) while limiting the negative psychological effects associated with property demarcation (especially in Industrial Areas);
- The vegetated surface provided by strategic urban greenery such as green walls and roofs is able to block high frequency sounds, and when constructed with a substrate or growing medium support can also block low frequency noises;
- Green walls can help mitigate loss of biodiversity due to the effects of urbanization, help sustain a variety of plants, pollinators and provide habitats for various species, especially in ecological fragmentated urban zones;
- Green roofs and green walls are usually kept moist to keep vegetation alive, therefore they are likely to be fire-resistant;
- Dense urban areas are normally affected by the Urban Heat Island Effect, as a result of a temperature difference between a certain urban area and its nearby rural areas. Certain studies indicate that the overall, the average reduction of the surrounding temperature, vary between a minimum and a maximum average of 1 °C to 2,3 °C; and
- Improving urban spaces with the integration of green infrastructure projects can be used as a tool to promote citizens health and well-being.