סמינר מחלקתי - כחול הוא הירוק החדש

Abstract:

With two-thirds of the human population concentrated around coastlines, alongside with growing threats from sea level rise and increased storminess, accelerated coastal development and changes to natural coastlines are inevitable. Over time, natural coastlines thus undergo severe changes, and in many cases are completely overtaken by ports, coastal defense measures, power plants, industrial facilities, and residential properties. As most marine flora and fauna reside in coastal areas, anthropogenic changes to coastlines are one of the key reasons for loss of coastal habitats, and for significant reduction of ecosystem services provided by urban marine environments.

While coastal infrastructure such as seawalls or breakwaters add significant amounts of hard substrate that can be colonised by marine organisms, these man-made structures do not support similar species assemblages to those of natural coastal and marine habitats. This is mainly due to design features related to steep slopes, low structural complexity, and high homogeneity, all of which are rarely found in natural habitats.

To date, coastal and marine infrastructure have overwhelmingly been designed and built with little or no consideration to marine life developing on them. As a result, their ability to provide ecosystem services similar to those offered by natural habitats is severely compromised.

The presentation will present an emerging approach that involves the planning, design and retrofitting of hard structures to create more multifunctional Blue-Green Infrastructure using ecologically sensitive designs and construction technologies that enhance their ability to provide valuable ecosystem services.  These services are especially critical along urbanised coastlines as these locations are where ecosystem services are under the most threat and are most needed by society.