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Green Infrastructure for Regional Resilience
This document discusses how green infrastructure, such as forests and parks, can help regions become more resilient to natural hazards. It provides definitions of green infrastructure and resilience, and examines how forests specifically benefit and risk regions facing flooding and wildfires. The document advocates for an all-hazards planning framework to minimize risks and maximize benefits through defining hazard areas, integrating green infrastructure into planning processes, using community planning tools, and coordinating actions across different scales from sites to communities to regions.
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Green Infrastructure for Regional Resilience
- 1. Green Infrastructure forRegional Resilience: The Role of America’s Forests Partners in Community Forestry November 17, 2016 David Rouse, FAICP, ASLA American Planning Association
- 2. Contents Definitions • Green Infrastructure •Resilience Resilience and America’s Forests • Shocks and Stresses • Benefits and Risks Planning for Regional Resilience
- 3. Green Infrastructure Definitions Cityand Regional Open Space An interconnected network of natural areas and other open spaces that conserves natural ecosystem values and functions, sustains clean area and water, and provides a wide array of benefits to people and wildlife. Green Stormwater Infrastructure Systems and practices that use or mimic natural processes to infiltrate, evapotranspirate, or reuse stormwater on the site where it is generated.
- 4. Green Infrastructure Examples RegionalScale • Working farms and forests • Regional parks and nature preserves • River corridors and greenways City Scale • Urban forest / tree canopy • Urban parks • Parkways and boulevards
- 5. Green Infrastructure Examples NeighborhoodScale • Local parks • Constructed wetlands • Green streets Site / Building Scale • Stormwater planters • Rain gardens • Green roofs / living walls
- 6. Environmental • Air • Water •Soil Economic • Real estate value • Retail / business • Energy conservation Social • Public health • Public safety • Connection to nature Green Infrastructure Co-Benefits • Climate • Wildlife Production: • Food • Fiber • Education • Aesthetics
- 7. Resilience is theability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and successfully adapt to adverse events (National Academy of Sciences, 2012) Resilience Definitions Building community resilience encompasses the entire community, including its physical infrastructure, its economic and social capital, its natural environment, and its systems providing essential services (ICMA, 2011).
- 8. Resilience Definition: Rockefeller Foundation •Shocks: acute natural & human-caused disasters • Stresses: chronic challenges to natural & human systems
- 9. Acute Shocks • Earthquakes •Coastal storms (winds, flooding) • Riverine flooding • Wildfire • Severe economic recessions Chronic Stresses • Drought • Insect infestations • Urban heat island effect • Nuisance flooding • Poverty / inequality • Climate change Shocks and Stresses
- 10. Benefits • Forest coverabsorbs rainfall, reducing downstream flooding • Trees intercept stormwater, reducing urban runoff • Co-benefits: water & air quality, climate moderation, wildlife habitat, etc. Risks • Climate change effects (extreme weather, sea level rise) • Trees can become hazards during extreme weather events • Development in floodprone areas creates / compounds risk Benefits and Risks: Flooding Source: Donald Outen, from Planning the Urban Forest, PAS Report No. 555 (2010)
- 11. Regional Green Infrastructure and Flooding GreaterBaltimore Wilderness Resilience Strategies: • Natural Resource Protection • Urban Forest Enhancement • Multi-Benefit Green Stormwater Infrastructure • Critical Infrastructure Protection • Coastal Defense Opportunities to Enhance and Restore Tree Canopy Baltimore City Source: The Conservation Fund
- 12. Benefits • Fire isa natural part of the forest ecosystem • Helps maintain forest health and diversity • Forest co-benefits: water & air quality, climate moderation, wildlife habitat, etc. Risks • Effects of fire suppression, climate change (heat, drought) • Potential for cascading and interactive disasters • Development in the Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) creates/compounds risk Benefits and Risks: Wildfire Source: Pizzo & Associates, Ltd
- 13. Regional Green Infrastructure and Wildfire Only16% of the WUI in the west is developed. Decisions by individuals and local communities have regional consequences. How can we maximize forest benefits and minimize risk at the landscape scale? National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy • Restore and maintain landscapes • Create fire-adapted communities • Effectively respond to wildfire Community Planning Assistance for Wildfire • Manage Development in the WUI Mapping of Wildfire Risk in Missoula, MT Source: Headwater Economics
- 14. Planning for RegionalResilience: All-Hazards Framework • Define / map hazard areas, green infrastructure assets, and associated risks and benefits. • Integrate hazards and green infrastructure into planning processes. • Use community planning tools to minimize risks and maximize benefits. • Coordinate action across scales: from site to community to region.
- 15. Define / maphazard areas, green infrastructure assets, and associated risks and benefits. Wildfire Hazard Potential in the U.S. Source: U.S. Forest Service Coastal Flood Frequency Map Source: NOAA’s Digital Coast Partnership Ecological Asset Network Map, Wasatch Front Region, UT
- 16. Integrate hazards andgreen infrastructure into planning processes. Long-Range Comprehensive/ Land Use Plans Functional Plans • Parks/Green Infrastructure Plans • Urban Forestry Plans • Hazard Mitigation Plans • Community Wildfire Protection Plans Area / Neighborhood Plans Five Strategic Points of Intervention 1. Long-Range Community Visioning and Goal Setting 2. Plan-making 3. Regulatory standards, policies, and incentives 4. Development work 5. Public Investment Source: American Planning Association
- 17. Use community planningtools to minimize risks and maximize benefits. Five Strategic Points of Intervention 1. Long-Range Community Visioning and Goal Setting 2. Plan-making 3. Regulatory standards, policies, and incentives 4. Development work 5. Public Investment Source: American Planning Association Regulations • Zoning and subdivision • Development standards Incentives • Conservation development • Transfer of Development Rights Public Investment • Land acquisition • Infrastructure investments • Other capital improvements
- 18. Coordinate actions acrossscales: from site to community to region. Site • Design / development standards • Homeowner disclosure / education Community • Coordinate planning across jurisdictional boundaries Region • Set regional framework • Coordinate planning by local jurisdictions • Regional planning agencies play key role Region: Denver Water / USFS Partnership Site: Portland Green Street
- 19. David Rouse, FAICP,ASLA Managing Director of Research and Advisory Services drouse@planning.org
Editor's Notes
- #4 There are two standards definitions of green infrastructure. The first, older definition refers to a network of open space – parks, greenways, natural areas, etc. – at the scale of a city or metropolitan region. The second, more recent definition refers to stormwater management practices that use vegetation, soil, and permeable surfaces to absorb runoff close to where it is generated. The City and Regional Open Space definition is from Mark A. Benedict and Edward T. McMahon, Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities, Island Press, 2006. The image is the Trinity River corridor in the Dallas-Fort Worth metropolitan region in Texas. The Green Stormwater Infrastructure definition is from the United States Environmental Protection Agency. The image is a natural street drainage project in Seattle, WA, referred to as a SEA (Street Edge Alternative) street.
- #5 In reality there is no sharp differentiation between the two definitions of green infrastructure, which form a continuum across geographic scales from the region to the city, district, neighborhood, and site. This slide shows examples of green infrastructure at the regional and city scale. The images are: forest land in Baltimore County, MD (top); Philadelphia, PA (middle); and Queens Boulevard, New York City (bottom). Make point: the urban forest is the largest structural component of green infrastructure in cities.
- #6 This slide shows examples of green infrastructure at the neighborhood and site/building scale. The images are a constructed wetland in a Philadelphia park (top); a green street in Philadelphia (middle); and a green wall, Musee d’Orsay, Paris (bottom).
- #7 Green infrastructure provides multiple benefits for ecosystems and people, which can be organized according to the triple bottom line of sustainability: environmental, economic, and social. i-Tree provides a tool for measuring many of these benefits, particularly environmental ones. The social benefits for people are particularly evident in the realm of public health, and there are many studies on the benefits of contact with nature for mental health and physical well-being.
- #8 Two definitions: Classic one from National Academy of Sciences / based on dictionary definition One from ICMA that emphasizes the holistic nature of mitigating hazards and building resilience across interrelated systems at the community scale. What is the role played by trees and green infrastructure in this diagram?
- #9 Picking up on the ICMA definition (referred to as “whole communities” by FEMA), the Rockefeller Foundation has developed an interesting definition for their 100 Resilient Cities and other resilience programs.
- #11 Look at a couple of the shocks in a little more detail, particularly as they relate to benefits and risks associates with green infrastructure and forest resources. First, flooding…
- #12 Here’s an example of using green infrastructure to build resiliency at the scale of the Greater Baltimore region. Funded by a Hurricane Sandy Coastal Resiliency Grant administered by NFWF, focuses on use of green infrastructure to enhance resilience to coastal storms and climate change across several watersheds. Framework strategies: Natural Resource Protection: Preserve lands with valuable and vulnerable resources providing hazard mitigation and other co-benefits, including floodplains, wetlands, forest, stream systems, steep slopes, hydric and highly erodible soils, and important habitat areas. Urban Forest Enhancement and Restoration: Maintain, enhance, and restore tree canopy in urban and suburban communities to reduce stormwater runoff, ameliorate the urban heat island effect, and improve air quality. Multi-Benefit Green Stormwater Infrastructure: Retrofit developed areas to reduce impervious surface and incorporate best management practices such as bioretention areas, green streets, and green roofs in order to reduce vulnerability to flooding. Critical Infrastructure Protection: Use green infrastructure to reduce extreme weather risks to critical infrastructure, including key transportation corridors, power production and transmission facilities, hospitals, and emergency management centers. Coastal Defense: Preserve/restore natural habitat and introduce nature-based practices (e.g., living shorelines) to protect against coastal flooding, storm surge, and sea level rise.
- #15 Work in idea of costs….
- #16 Coastal Flood Frequency map from Digital Coast. Costs not necessarily absorbed locally.
- #17 Introduce APA’s model of five strategic points of intervention in planning. This relates to the first two points.
- #18 This slide relates to the third three points, which involve plan implementation.