ABSTRACT
This chapter clarifies there are two approaches to green infrastructure that are not interchangeable. The first approach is the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), refers to "systems and practices that use or mimic natural processes to infiltrate, evapotranspirate, or reuse stormwater or runoff on the site where it is generated." The second approach to green infrastructure is conceptually larger than the first. A landscape approach to green infrastructure entails a design vision that translates planning strategy into physical reality while heeding the ecological and cultural characteristics of a particular locale—whether a region or an individual building site. Landscape has traditionally been defined as an esthetic resource, such as an expanse of scenery, or as the overall geography of a region. Green infrastructure is relatively new to the lexicon of urban planning and landscape design. Green infrastructure lends itself to an integrated, systems thinking approach, one that overcomes the limitations of more specialized or "silo" methods of problem solving.
