Runoff Ramblings
Runoff Ramblings is the blog of the Center for Watershed Protection and is a forum for sharing ideas, resources, expertise, and information pertinent to watershed professionals. The blog consists of ramblings from Center staff, as well as guest bloggers and is updated regularly. We welcome your comments, as well as your ideas for guest bloggers. Please contact Lisa Fraley-McNeal at lfm@cwp.org with any questions, comments or to inquire about guest blogger opportunities.
What is Green Infrastructure?
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About a year ago, I wrote in the Center’s Runoff Ramblings about some thoughts on green infrastructure…
Before "Green Infrastructure," there was low impact design, environmentally sensitive site design, conservation design, smart growth, and new urbanism. These concepts are certainly not all synonymous with each other, but they do share similar tenets of reduced environmental impacts…The different definitions of Green Infrastructure have been at the center of this morass. Recently, EPA defined green infrastructure as "an approach to wet weather management that is cost-effective, sustainable, and environmentally friendly" (retrieved on December 27, 2011 from (http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/home.cfm?program_id=298). The traditional use of the term by the conservation planning community refers to the network of natural lands across the landscape - forests, wetlands, stream corridors, grasslands - that work together as a whole to provide ecological benefits. This broad definition includes both landscape-scale natural features and site-scale practices ranging from reduction of impervious cover to stormwater best management practices (BMPs), such as bioretention and stormwater wetlands, and everything in between…” (Click here to read the full post).At the heart of the issue, I highlight the fact that green infrastructure should be defined much more broadly than as a synonym for improved stormwater management practices.
Many peers and colleagues in the watershed and stormwater field seem to have some pretty strong opinions on what green infrastructure is. The range of responses is interesting. A few people wanted to correct what they said was my misuse of the terminology. A few others thought I was against green infrastructure. Yet a handful of others noted that this is a much needed conversation.
As a subscriber of the conservation planning’s definition of green infrastructure which includes a broader array of tools. Recent studies have shown that dry-weather discharges, gross solids, and regenerative stormwater are very promising and in some cases, orders of magnitude more cost-effective than stormwater management best management practices. Studies like the James River Report recently written by the Center shows the true economic benefit of broadening the definition. By broadening the definition and incorporating additional tools, green infrastructure proponents would win, the localities could win, and we could really change the game on pollution removal, particularly in urban areas.
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Monday, 06 May 2013
What do you think about pet waste management as a cost effective management technique? In a study for the James River Association, Karen Cappiella suggested as much. The report can be found here:
http://www.jamesriverassociation.org/what-we-do/cost-effective-stormwater-management
Very balanced approach. Makes sense to me