- Ecological Infrastructure as a Tool for smart Growth: A reversed approach    567 kb by    YU, Kongjian & LI, Hailong | kj@turenscape.com    Short Outline Ecological infrastructure (EI) is critical landscape patterns and are strategically planned to secure ecosystems services essential for a sustainable city. EI functions as an effective tool for smart growth in the context of rapid urbanization. Abstract Ecological infrastructure (EI) is composed of critical landscape patterns that are strategically identified and planned to safeguard the various natural, biological, cultural and recreational processes across the landscape, securing ecosystems services essential for sustaining human society. Environmental resource concepts such as corridors, green belts, greenways, ecological networks and others, have contributed to the evolution of the concept of EI. The concept of EI is builds upon the concept of ecosystems services. The knowledge of landscape ecology and pattern-processes relationships are the foundation of EI, and GIS are a powerful tool for the planning of ecological infrastructure. EI functions as an effective tool for smart growth in the context of rapid urbanization. EI is planned ahead of time, anticipating the scale, context and configuration of future urban development patterns. EI is strategically planned and developed using less land but more efficiency in safeguarding the ecosystems services. The paper demonstrates how to use EI as a tool to guide and frame sustainable urban development and to prevent sprawl. EI can be identified and planned through a systematic approach. Both the layer-cake model of suitability analyses and the horizontal pattern-processes model of landscape ecology play important role in the planning of EI. Multiple case studies of the planning and construction of EI are discussed at various scales: national, metropolitan, municipal, neighborhood and site. It is argued that EI can be a powerful tool in addressing the survival issues this planet is now facing. Therefore the planning, design and management of EI is the core knowledge and skill of the profession of urban and regional planning today. Keywords Smart growth, wise conservation, sustainable development Case Study presented on the ISOCARP Congress 2008: Urban Growth without Sprawl   Click to open the full paper as pdf document   Click to send an email to the author(s) of this paper