The significance and benefits of green infrastructures using I-Tree canopy software with a sustainable approach

Nowadays, the ecosystem and ecological values of green infrastructures in forests and urban parks have gained broader attention, because plants are providing not only ecosystem services (ESs) but also social, economic, cultural, educational and health services. Since there have not been proper tools for measuring and evaluating the green infrastructures, urban residents especially those who live in industrial and developing cities have neglected the benefits of the green infrastructures. This research with using I-Tree canopy tool (version 7.1) has considered not only the green infrastructures in two urban sites Nahjol-Balaghe and Pardisan parks (approximately 321 hectares) located in Tehran metropolis, but also ESs and economic savings, which will be contributed to air pollution reduction, carbon storage and sequestration, management and reduction of surface runoff. In addition, this study with applying library and survey methods (interviews with, managers, constructors and visitors) inspects the importance of the sites in sustainable development (economic growth, social and cultural factors and environmental protection), energy conservation (contrasting with urban heat effects, briefly), various plant species and dominant species in the study sites. The result show that 94.58 ha of the site is covered with soil and bare grounds, while only 69.08 ha of it is covered with trees/shrubs, therefore this feature has caused surveyed sites have a poor performance in flood control and mitigation of surface runoff. Consequently, this study also consists of management and solutions for using trees, shrubs and other green infrastructures to cover bare grounds, so as to by measuring the extent of green infrastructures and calculating their economic value in providing ESs, having a healthy urban green space in industrial and large cities, as well as sustainable development management, will help people's well-being, and simultaneously protecting the strategies of green infrastructures in metropolises with ecological and environmental challenges.