Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Services and Green Infrastructure

Wapato Lake, on the edge of the region’s Urban Growth Boundary, south of Forest Grove provides invaluable services to the region through flood water retention. Without wetlands like Wapato Lake the region would experience more severe flooding.

One of the primary policy activities of the Institute is advocating for the recognition that streams, wetlands, fish and wildlife habitat, parks, trails, and greenspaces contribute to the ecological, social, and economic health of the city and the region.

The Institute is working with the City of Portland’s Bureau of Environmental Services to conduct research and collect information regarding the economic contributions green infrastructure to the City of Portland.

Balch Creek, Forest Park. A forested watershed contributes to cleaner water in urban streams and in the case of Balch Creek also provides habitat for threatened species of fish and wildlife. Native cutthroat trout live in Balch Creek, even though it is separated from the Willamette River by the Northwest Industrial District, through which Balch Creek flows in a huge underground conduit.

Green Infrastructure is the city and region’s alternative infrastructure. It protects the water quality of our streams and rivers and drinking water supplies. It supports the region’s diversity of plants and animals, protects air quality, and contributes to the health and quality of life for the region’s citizens.

Parks such as the Vera Katz Eastbank Esplanade, not only provides alternative commuting routes for walkers and bicyclists, but contributes to a healthier citizenry.

All of these services, sometimes referred to as Ecosystem Services or Natural Capital, contribute to the region’s economy by increasing property values, avoiding costly environmental clean ups and provide services at no cost to the public.

Why Green Infrastructure?

The urban forest canopy in downtown Portland helps reduce the “heat island” effect in the city’s core, intercepts rainwater that would otherwise become stormwater runoff, and is aesthetically pleasing.

The Urban Greenspaces Institute is dedicated to promoting the concept of Green Infrastructure to decision makers, designers, and the general public. One of the leading proponents of green infrastructure is the Green Infrastructure Network, which states: "Most land and water conservation initiatives in the United States are reactive not proactive; haphazard not systematic; piecemeal not holistic; single-scale not multi-scale, single-purpose not multi-functional. Current conservation efforts often focus on individual pieces of land, limiting their conservation benefits to the environment and human health. The Mission of the Green Infrastructure Network is to illustrate that identifying and planning for Green Infrastructure - multi-purpose green space networks - provides a framework for smart conservation and smart growth."

Ecoroofs, such as this one at the Multnomah County offices in SE Portland, slow down and retain stormwater, save energy, and are an amenity to downtown workers.

The Urban Greenspaces Institute advocates for public policies that ensure that the region puts the same resources into protecting and expanding our green infrastructure as the region’s gray infrastructure of roads, sewers, drinking water and other urban services. A significant step in this direction was the recent acknowledgement by Portland’s City Council that the Portland Parks system is part of the city’s basic infrastructure.

Mayor Elect Sam Adams has committed the City of Portland to spend $50 million over the next five years to improve the city’s green infrastructure through tree plantings, innovative stormwater projects, ecoroofs, culvert replacements, and other watershed health initiatives (get flier:Going Green for Clean Rivers).

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"....if we have to err in our acquisition programs let it be toward more open space. We must make every piece of space do double and triple duty, and we have all the tools and precedents we need to make smaller spaces seem larger and find ways to link them make them far more accessible to people, and if not to the foot, at least to the eye."

-- William H. Whyte, The Last Landscape, 1968