Cheverly Green Infrastructure Plan
ENVIRONMENTAL AND ECONOMIC BENEFITS OF NATURAL ECOSERVICES
Our green infrastructure provides us many benefits free of cost, including multiple services of which we often become aware only after they are lost. The benefits of maintaining natural areas as functioning ecosystems generally far exceed those we might get from putting the same domain to other uses. Implementing the green infrastructure plan recommendations will help us maintain healthy functioning ecosystems that can serve Cheverly in the following ways:
Healthy functioning ecosystems generate and maintain the dynamic balance of nature that is required for all life, including ours, to exist and persist.
Biodiversity enables ecosystems to adapt to changing conditions and provides resilience against catastrophic events such as droughts, fires, hurricanes, or even climate change.
The oxygen we breathe is created by the trees and other plants around us. At the same time these plants remove pollutants such as ground-level ozone, carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases from the air that are harmful to our health and heat up our planet.
Trees can reduce surface temperatures by at least ten degrees to ameliorate the heat island effects created by sun heated asphalt, bricks and concrete.
Forested areas help stabilize local and regional climate by moderating temperature, regulating humidity through controlled evaporation and transpiration and by buffering heavy winds. These processes also moderate fluctuations between excess rainfall and droughts and make storms less severe.
Leguminious plants, microorganisms and fungi convert nitrogen into forms other plants can use and trees also retain phosphorus and other nutrients increasing soil fertility.
The water we drink is filtered and purified by soil and vegetation as it moves through the natural hydrologic cycle.
When the natural hydrology is allowed to operate it slows down runoff preventing it from flooding, causing erosion, silting and picking up pollutants or excess nutrients causing eutrophication.
Water picks up oxygen during the natural cycle, is cooled by trees shading streams and carries organic nutrients to support aquatic and all other life. Cool clean water also reduces waterborne infectious agents found in unfiltered, tepid and polluted runoff that has not gone through these cleansing phases.
Soil is part of our life support system in forming the matrix in which the chemicals necessary for life circulate and feed the plants that in turn feed us.
Soil acts as a storehouse for carbon captured by vegetation thus preventing even more warming of our atmosphere.
Soil, as a component of the hydrologic cycle, captures and stores water in aquifers from which we draw much of our drinking water.
The reproduction of most plants we rely on is made possible by the insects, birds and mammals that pollinate them. Many animals also disperse seeds, some by first preparing them for germination by first passing them through their digestive systems.
Natural balance of plants and other animals is maintained by herbivores and predators that prevent overpopulation of any one species thus protecting the environment from overexploitation.
Birds and many small mammals control harmful insects, rodents and other pests that harm property and cause disease.
Waste materials are recycled by a variety of microorganisms; others convert soil and atmospheric chemicals into nutrients necessary for plant growth.
The economic benefits of the above free ecoservices are enormous and many of them are beyond our current ability to replicate. When we are forced to replicate services such as water and air purification, flood control, assuring a reliable supply of water, removing greenhouse gases and storing carbon, cooling and regulating the humidity of our buildings, waste removal, pollution abatement, pollination management, fertilizing soil, they cost us billions of dollars. When we add to them the savings we could have from better health resulting in fewer days lost to illness the benefits keep multiplying. The intangible benefits of more pleasant and beautiful surroundings may also contribute to less stress and better mental health and at the same time increase the value of our properties.