Green Infrastructure Case Studies: Municipal Policies for Managing Stormwater

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Green Infrastructure Case Studies: Municipal Policies for Managing Stormwater

This report presents the common trends in how 12 local governments developed and implemented stormwater policies to support green infrastructure

The local policies examined in this paper include interagency cooperation, enforcement and management issues and integration with state and federal regulations. While a strong motivation for these policies and programs is innovation in stormwater management, many communities are moving past the era of single objective spending and investing in runoff reduction and stormwater management strategies that have multiple benefits.  Green infrastructure approaches have a range of benefits for the social, environmental and economic conditions of a community.  

Not only do these case studies include success stories for building a comprehensive green infrastructure program, but they also provide insight into the barriers and failures these communities experienced while trying to create a stormwater managements system that includes more green infrastructure approaches. 

The following chapters provide descriptions of the most common and influential green infrastructure policies, a brief background on how each approach works and examples from relevant case studies about results, barriers and processes for implementation.  Many of the policies work in tandem and fit within a context of several other green infrastructure policies and programs.  The greenest cities in terms of stormwater management use a wide range of policies and a number of approaches that focus on both public and private properties.

This report was prepared by the United States Environmental Protection Agency's (US EPA) Office of Wetlands, Oceans andWatersheds: Nonpoint Source Program.  Abby Hall is the principal author.

See below to download the document.

Contents

Chapter 1: Common Drivers and Regulatory Framework.  Green infrastructure policies can achieve multiples municipal goals at the same time as meeting Federal Clean Water Act requirements, making them useful and efficiency policy options for local decision makers.  This chapter outlines the multiple benefits of green infrastructure and explains the ways that communities are using them as a motivation for their local green infrastructure policies and programs.

Chapter 2: Menu of Local Green Infrastructure Policies.   This chapter contains descriptions of the major policy approaches that are common to the majority of municipalities studied for this report, including examples of how the policies have been applied. 

Chapter 3: Policy Implementation: Barriers, Lessons Learned and Realities of Each Policy.   This chapter builds off the previous one and contains guidance on how local green infrastructure policies should be implemented and adapted to fit local needs.   Specifically, the chapter discusses barriers and challenges to the implementation of specific green infrastructure policies, including lack of funding, conflicting regulations, lack of training, etc.

Source: Sustainable Cities

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