Green infrastructure - the smart interpreting of natural capital

Abstract Humanity continues to degrade natural capital, threatening its long-term sustainability. This more and more categorically imposes the need to create a specific green infrastructure - a response to the natural solutions to the accumulating problems (environmental pollution, floods, natural disasters and cataclysms). The failure of decisions to pay sufficient attention to ecological consequences and to apply systematic measures of high quality are among the main reasons for the current situation in most ecosystems. The fast-paced and highly mechanized way of life of modern man creates the illusion of remoteness from the natural world. Yet all human activity depends entirely on ecosystems and their functions and at the same time has (threatening) impacts on them. Therefore, the achievement of greater efficiency in the use of natural resources and the creation of suitable ecological living conditions are critically important goals both for Europe and for the whole world. Green Infrastructure (GI) is a successfully tested tool for providing environmental, economic and social benefits through environmentally sound solutions. Such a tool helps to understand the values provided by nature to human society and mobilizes investments for their maintenance and growth.