The Urban Street Stormwater Guide begins from the principle that street design can support--or degrade--the urban area's overall environmental health. By incorporating Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) into the right-of-way, cities can manage stormwater and reap the public health, environmental, and aesthetic benefits of street trees, planters, and greenery in the public realm. Building on the successful NACTO urban street guides, the Urban Street Stormwater Guide provides the best practices for the design of GSI along transportation corridors. The state-of-the-art solutions in this guide will assist urban planners and designers, transportation engineers, city officials, ecologists, public works officials, and others interested in the role of the built urban landscape in protecting the climate, water quality, and natural environment.

Vacant lots, so often seen as neighborhood blight, have the potential to be a key element of community revitalization. As manufacturing cities reinvent themselves after decades of lost jobs and population, abundant vacant land resources and interest in green infrastructure are expanding opportunities for community and environmental resilience. Vacant to Vibrant explains how inexpensive green infrastructure projects can reduce stormwater runoff and pollution, and provide neighborhood amenities, especially in areas with little or no access to existing green space. Sandra Albro offers practical insights through her experience leading the five-year Vacant to Vibrant project, which piloted the creation of green infrastructure networks in Gary, Indiana; Cleveland, Ohio; and Buffalo, New York. Vacant to Vibrant provides a point of comparison among the three cities as they adapt old systems to new, green technology. An overview of the larger economic and social dynamics in play throughout the Rust Belt region establishes context for the promise of green infrastructure. Albro then offers lessons learned from the Vacant to Vibrant project, including planning, design, community engagement, implementation, and maintenance successes and challenges. An appendix shows designs and plans that can be adapted to small vacant lots. Landscape architects and other professionals whose work involves urban greening will learn new approaches for creating infrastructure networks and facilitating more equitable access to green space.

Green Stormwater Infrastructure Fundamentals and Design Discover novel stormwater control measures to make for a greener tomorrow! The protection of our aquatic resources is growing in importance as the effects of climate change and continued urbanization are felt throughout the world. While most rain that falls onto vegetated spaces infiltrates the soil, rain that falls onto impervious surfaces will not, increasing downstream flooding and erosion and causing impaired water quality. Impervious surfaces such as road infrastructure, rooftops, and parking areas all increase runoff and mobilize many pollutants that have deposited on these surfaces that are then carried into our waterways. Proper management of this stormwater through green infrastructure is essential to address these challenges and reduce the environmental and ecological impacts brought about by this runoff. This book brings into focus resilient stormwater control measures (SCMs) for the reduction of stormwater flows and associated pollutants that can detrimentally impact our local environmental and ecological systems. These interventions are green infrastructure based, utilizing natural hydrologic and environmental features using soil and vegetation to manage stormwater. These technologies include water harvesting, bioretention and bioinfiltration, vegetated swales and filter strips, permeable pavements, sand filters, green roofs, and stormwater wetlands, among others. The basic science and engineering of these technologies is discussed, including performance information and best maintenance practices. Green Stormwater Infrastructure readers will also find: Research-informed resilient SCM design fundamentals Diagrams developed by the authors to enhance understanding Case studies to illustrate the points elucidated in the book End-of-chapter problems with a separate solutions manual Green Stormwater Infrastructure is an ideal resource for environmental, civil, and biological engineers and environmental scientists in the consulting field. Landscape architects, managers and engineers of watershed districts, and members of federal, state, and local governmental agencies—especially those in the departments of environmental protection and transportation—will find many uses for this guidebook. It will also be of interest to professors, upper-level undergraduates and graduate students in environmental, civil, and biological engineering programs.

Cost of Maintaining Green Infrastructure reports findings from effort to capture and quantify the expenses associated with operating and maintaining sustainable stormwater-management technologies.

“Green Stormwater Infrastructure for Sustainable Urban and Rural Development” offers some of the latest international scientific and practitioner findings around the adaptation of urban, rural and transportation infrastructures to climate change by sustainable water management. This book addresses the main gaps in the up-to-date literature and provides the reader with a holistic view, ranging from a strategic and multiscale planning, implementation and decision-making angle down to the engineering details for the design, construction, operation and maintenance of green stormwater techniques such as sustainable drainage systems (SuDS) and stormwater control measures (SCMs). This book is particularly recommended for a wide audience of readers, such as academics/researchers and students in the fields of architecture and landscaping, engineering, environmental and natural sciences, social and physical geography and urban and territorial planning. This book is also a resource for practitioners and professionals developing their work in architecture studios, engineering companies, local and regional authorities, water and environmental industries, infrastructure maintenance, regulators, planners, developers and legislators.

This volume examines the applicability of landscape urbanism theory in contemporary landscape architecture practice by bringing together ecology and architecture in the built environment. Using participatory planning of green infrastructure and application of nature-based solutions to address urban challenges, landscape urbanism seeks to reintroduce critical connections between natural and urban systems. In light of ongoing developments in landscape architecture, the goal is a paradigm shift towards a landscape that restores and rehabilitates urban ecosystems. Nine contributions examine a wide range of successful cases of designing livable and resilient cities in different geographical contexts, from the United States of America to Australia and Japan, and through several European cities in Italy, Portugal, Estonia, and Greece. While some chapters attempt to conceptualize the interconnections between cities and nature, others clearly have an empirical focus. Efforts such as the use of ornamental helophyte plants in bioretention ponds to reduce and treat stormwater runoff, the recovery of a poorly constructed urban waterway or participatory approaches for optimizing the location of green stormwater infrastructure and examining the environmental justice issue of equative availability and accessibility to public open spaces make these innovations explicit. Thus, this volume contributes to the sustainable cities goal of the United Nations.

This book addresses the nuts and bolts of planning and preserving natural assets at a variety of scales--from dense urban environments to scenic rural landscapes. A practical guide to creating effective and well-crafted plans and then implementing them, the book presents a six-step process developed and field-tested by the Green Infrastructure Center in Charlottesville, Virginia. Well-organized chapters explain how each step, from setting goals to implementing opportunities, can be applied to a variety of scenarios, customizable to the reader's target geographical location.

The subtropical climate of the Gulf South supports a varied abundance of flora, and this diversity is sustained by the ample amount of rainwater that characterizes the region. Managing rainwater in a planned environment and mitigating its effect on human habitation can test the skills of even the most seasoned landscape architect or designer. That challenge has never been more acute as increased human demand for natural resources compels professionals and home gardeners alike to seek out sustainable ecological solutions. In this guidebook, Dana Nunez Brown details ways to manage each drop of rainwater where it falls, using a cost-effective and environmentally sensitive approach. Under natural conditions, rainfall primarily percolates into the ground and flows as groundwater until it is absorbed by trees and other vegetation, after which it is evaporated into the atmosphere and the cycle starts anew. Brown identifies plants and techniques that leverage this natural process in order to filter, clean, and slow runoff, a practice known as Low Impact Development. Using Plants for Stormwater Management presents the native ecological communities and plant species of the Gulf South in easy-to-follow sections and diagrams. Information ranging from the productiveness of root structures and the compatibility of plants with local soils to the optimal elevation of specific vegetation and the average dimensions of foliage is represented by graphic icons for quick and easy identification. An accessible and essential resource, this book gives both novices and experts the know-how to harness rainfall and create beautiful, ecologically functioning landscapes.

Our understandings of the landscapes around us are constantly changing. How we interact with, manage and value these spaces is important, as it helps us to ensure we live in attractive, functional and sustainable places. Green Infrastructure planning is the current ‘go-to’ approach in landscape planning that incorporates human-environmental interactions, understandings of ecology and how socio-cultural factors influence our use of parks, gardens and waterways. This book explores several interpretations of Green Infrastructure bringing together case studies of policy, practice, ecological change and community understandings of landscape. Focusing on how planning policy shapes our interactions with the landscape, as individuals and communities, the book discusses what works and what needs to be improved. It examines how environmental management can promote more sustainable approaches to landscape protection ensuring that water resources and ecological communities are not harmed by development. It also asks what the economic and community values of Green Infrastructure are to illustrate how different social, ecological and political factors influence how our landscapes are managed. The central message of the book focusses on the promotion of multi-functional nature within urban landscapes that helps people, the economy and the environment to meet the challenges of population, infrastructure and economic change. The chapters in this book were origianally published as a special issue in Landscape Research.

Green infrastructure integrates human and natural systems through a network of corridors and spaces in mixed-use and urban settings. Austin takes a broad look at green infrastructure concepts, research and case studies to provide the student and professional with processes, criteria and data to support planning, design and implementation. Key topics of the book include: The benefits of green infrastructure as a conservation and planning tool Requirements of ecosystem health Green infrastructure ecosystem services that contribute to human physical and psychological health Planning processes leading to robust green infrastructure networks Design of green infrastructure elements for multiple uses. The concept of ecosystem services is extensively developed in this book, including biological treatment of stormwater and wastewater, opportunities for recreation, urban agriculture and emersion in a naturalistic setting. It defines planning and design processes as well as the political and economic facets of envisioning, funding and implementing green infrastructure networks. The book differs from others on the market by presenting the technical issues, requirements and performance of green infrastructure elements, along with the more traditional recreation and wildlife needs associated with greenway planning, providing information derived from environmental engineering to guide planners and landscape architects.