Symbiotic Natural Infrastructures

Something I think about a lot is how our transportation system actually interacts with natural systems. In his book Crossings, Ben Goldfarb shares the many ways that our obsession with road building blocks off animal movements and in some instances even reduces the gene pool for some. While he talks about creatures big and small, he mostly discusses animals and the impact of “road ecology” on them.

But what about flora? Lately we’ve seen a lot of discussions of the need for creating green spaces in cities to reduce temperatures and absorb the impacts of the urban heat island humans have created. We want them to help us, but how in turn do we help them?

The first thing, as Kelly Turner notes, is that we need to measure heat properly. Often we don’t and our mitigation strategies suffer. The parking lot for instance might be shaded, but there are other aspects to heat aside from direct sun that are deadly.

But the second thing is we need to understand better is the actual processes which create thriving biodiversity in cities including natural infrastructure networks. Trees and other plant systems are part of interconnected networks which provide mutual aid in times of stress. But often underground connections through fungal growth are cut off and trees and other plants are left to fend for themselves between the sidewalk and road.

Understanding these connections exist allow us as planners to facilitate aid in our own infrastructure. Vanessa Harden, an environmental designer, has created such a tool; a soil conduit. Soil conduits are are small tunnels under hardened infrastructure that connect natural tree networks together such that they don’t have to endure urban stresses alone.

Through her research, Harden found that trees could connect with others within 30 meters if given the opportunity. Conduits for the fungal networks could create substantial support systems that allow trees to thrive when they would otherwise wilt.

What this type of innovation allows is a synergy between our urban systems and natural systems that could help us thrive and adapt over the long term. As Michael Neuman notes, we have a lot to learn from nature. Human civilization is only around ten thousand years old and our ancestor proto-humans are only a few hundred thousand years old. Trees such as the redwood have been evolving for millions of years. What wise beings they must be.

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