To Tackle Rainwater Runoff, Cities in the United States Turn to Green Infrastructure Initiatives
Projects demonstrate a realization that nature is often very good at things we humans find hard to accomplish
“Urban stormwater runoff is a serious problem, overloading sewage treatment plants and polluting waterways. Now, various U.S. cities are creating innovative green infrastructure — such as rain gardens and roadside plantings — that mimics the way nature collects and cleanses water,” writes Dave Levitan in an online article posted on Yale 360 Environment.
“The green infrastructure approach says, ‘Let’s get the water out of those sewer systems in the first place before it has a chance to convey all that pollution into our waterways,’” he quotes Larry Levine, a senior attorney in the Natural Resource Defense Council’s water program.
“And the way to do that is to put back into our built environment features that mimic the way nature handles rainwater in the natural water cycle. It doesn’t necessarily mean replacing a paved street with a park, but it means putting enough green space into the design of your roadway that you can capture runoff from that paved space,” says Levine.
To Learn More
The article describes green infrastructure initiatives in major American cities on the east and west coasts. To download the complete article, click on To Tackle Runoff, Cities Turn to Green Initiatives.
About Dave Levitan:
Dave Levitan is a freelance journalist based in Philadelphia who writes about energy, the environment, and health. His articles have been published by Reuters, SolveClimate, IEEE Spectrum, and Psychology Today. In previous articles for Yale Environment 360, he has written about the potential of self-driving cars and about vehicle-to-grid technology involving electric cars.
Yale Environment 360 is a publication of the Yale School of Forestry & Environmental Studies.
The View from British Columbia
In British Columbia, a provincial goal is to advance this ‘new business as usual’: settlement change that is in balance with ecology. Commencing in 2003, consistent and repeated use of the phrase ‘design with nature’ has proven effective in facilitating a paradigm-shift in the local government setting.
The phrase is borrowed from the title of a seminal book by Ian McHarg, published in 1969. He was a renowned landscape architect and writer on regional planning using natural systems. His book Design with Nature pioneered the concept of ecological planning. Ian McHarg’s premise is simple: “that the shaping of land for human use ought to be based on an understanding of natural process.”
His philosophy was rooted in an ecological sensibility that accepted the interwoven worlds of the human and the natural, and sought to more fully and intelligently design human environments in concert with the conditions of setting, climate and environment.
Hierarchy of ‘Green’ Vocabulary
To develop a common understanding plus help advance a new way-of-thinking about land development, the Water Sustainability Action Plan for British Columbia developed the following hierarchy of ‘green’ vocabulary:
- Green Value means land use strategies will accommodate settlement needs in practical ways while protecting the ecological resources upon which communities depend.
- Design with Nature is one approach to achieve Green Value, and is supportive of community goals that relate to building social capacity.
- Green Infrastructure is the on-the-ground application of Design with Nature standards and practices.
- Water Sustainability is achieved through Green Infrastructure practices that reflect a full and proper understanding of the relationship between land and water.
This cascading vocabulary was unveiled at the Creating Our Future Workshop that was held in conjunction with the Gaining Ground Summit in Victoria in June 2007.
To Learn More:
The foregoing is extracted from an article posted previously on the Rainwater Management community-of-interest. The article provided a consolidated reference for a number of articles in posted on the Waterbucket in 2010 – 2011. Their significance lies in the way they connect the dots between recent developments in the United States and initiatives that are underway in British Columbia.
To read the complete article, click on Cross-Border Alignment: Connecting the Dots Between Land Use Planning, Development, Watershed Health AND Infrastructure Management.