Volume 11: Sustainable Energy Solutions for Changing the World: Part III

Emergy-based Ecological Benefits Evaluation of Green-Blue Infrastructure in Sponge Residential Community Shiyu Li, Yunsheng Bai, Jingyi Gong, Asim Nawab, Aamir Mehmood Shah, Gengyuan Liu

Abstract

The Green-Blue infrastructures in sponge residential communities have important ecological benefits but are still lack of systematic evaluation methods. This study proposes an emergy-based classification and evaluation method for four types of Green-Blue infrastructures, including forest type, wetland type, grassland type, and special type. 20 typical sponge residential communities in 7 cities of China are surveyed. The results show that wetland type infrastructures (including biological retention pond and rainwater garden) can provide the highest ecological benefit per unit area. There is obvious spatial heterogeneity of GBIs’ ecological benefits. The results show that, compared with north cities, the construction of GBIs can provide higher ecological effects in south cities. The donor-side method can provide new ideas and references for the assessment of sponge residential communities.

Keywords emery method, Green-Blue infrastructure, ecological benefits