GI_Smart Conservation for the 21st Century

Mark A. Benedict is director of the Conservation Leadership Network, The Conservation Fund. Edward T. McMahon is vice president and director of Land Use Programs, The Conservation Fund.This article is based on a monograph published in February 2002 by the Sprawl Watch Clearinghouse. Copies of the monograph can be obtained by contacting the Sprawl Watch Clearing-house (1400 16th Street NW, Washing-ton, D.C., 20035, 202-332-7000) or by downloading the PDF file from the Clearinghouse’s website (www.sprawl ). The authors thank the Surdna Foundation, Tucker Founda-tion, Jackson Hole Preserve, Inc., Vir-ginia Environmental Endowment, and USDA Forest Service that have sup-ported The Conservation Fund’s green infrastructure program.framework needed for environmental,social and economic sustainability—our nation’s natural life support sys-tem.Planning utilizing green infra-structure differs from conventionalopen space planning because it looksat conservation values in concert withland development, growth managementand built infrastructure planning.This article introduces green infra-structure as a strategic approach to landconservation that addresses the eco-logical and social impacts of sprawland the accelerated consumption andfragmentation of open land. It describesthe concept and value of green infra-structure and presents seven principlesfor successful green infrastructure ini-tiatives.What Is Green Infrastructure?Webster’s New World Dictionarydefines infrastructure as “the substruc-ture or underlying foundation, espe-cially the basic installations and facili-ties on which the continuance andgrowth of a community depends.” Mostpeople think of infrastructure as roads,sewers and utility lines—gray infra-structure; or as hospitals, schools andprisons—social infrastructure. Takentogether, these are often referred to asbuilt infrastructure. Today, manypeople and organizations are talkingabout another type of infrastructurecritical to the continuance and growthof a community—green infrastructure.In 1999, The Conservation Fund andthe USDA Forest Service formed aworking group of government agenciesand non-governmental organizations todevelop a program that would helpmake green infrastructure an integralpart of local, regional and state plansand policies. This Green InfrastructureWork Group developed the followingdefinition for green infrastructure:“Green infrastructure is our nation’snatural life support system—an inter-connected network of waterways, wet-lands, woodlands, wildlife habitats andother natural areas; greenways, parksand other conservation lands; workingfarms, ranches and forests; and wilder-ness and other open spaces that sup-port native species, maintain naturalecological processes, sustain air andwater resources and contribute to thehealth and quality of life for America’scommunities and people.”Green infrastructure’s componentsinclude a variety of natural and restoredecosystems and landscape features thatmake up a system of “hubs” and“links.” Hubs anchor green infrastruc-ture networks, providing origins anddestinations for the wildlife and eco-logical processes moving to or throughthem. Links are the connections tyingthe system together and enabling greeninfrastructure networks to work. Hubsand links range in size, function andownership. In order to be successful,these elements need long-term protec-tion through long-range planning andGreen Infrastructure:Smart Conservation for the 21st Century Mark A. Benedict and Edward T. McMahonIntroduction“Green infrastructure” is a term be-coming more commonly used amongnatural resource professionals.Whileit means different things to differentpeople, depending on the context inwhich it is used, for the purposes ofthis article, green infrastructure is aninterconnected network of green spacethat conserves natural ecosystem val-ues and functions and provides associ-ated benefits to human populations.Green infrastructure is the ecologicalmanagement, as well as an ongoing commitment.Green Infrastructure’s Origins Green infrastructure is a new term, but not a new idea. It has roots in plan-ning and conservation efforts that started 150 years ago. The concept evolved from two important prece-dents: (1) the linking of parks and other green spaces for the benefit of people, and (2) the linking of natural areas to benefit biodiversity and counter habi-tat fragmentation.In 1903, landscape architect Frederick Law Olmsted stated that, “no single park, no matter how large and how well designed, would provide the citizens with the beneficial influences of nature.” Instead, parks needed “to be linked to one another and to sur-rounding residential neighborhoods.”1 This idea of linking parks for the bene-fit of people sparked the modern green-ways movement.Additionally, wildlife biologists and ecologists have long recognized that the best way to preserve biological di-versity and ecological processes is to create an integrated conservation sys-tem to counter habitat fragmentation. Creating and restoring connections between parks, preserves and other important ecological areas is a key con-cept for the science of conservation biology and the practice of ecosystem management.The President’s Council on Sustain-able Development identified green in-frastructure as one of five strategic ar-eas that provide a comprehensive ap-proach for sustainable community development. The Council’s 1999 re-port stated, “Green infrastructure strat-egies actively seek to understand, le-verage, and value the different ecologi-cal, social, and economic functions provided by natural systems in order to guide more efficient and sustainable land use and development patterns as well as protect ecosystems.”2 This re-port, along with innovative projects atthe state, regional and local levels, hasled to a rapid increase in the use of theterm “green infrastructure” and theapplication of its concepts and values.The modern greenways movementalso has influenced green infrastructureplanning and implementation. Al-though green infrastructure and green-ways share a common origin, greeninfrastructure differs from greenwaysin at least three major ways:Ecology vs. Recreation—Green in-frastructure emphasizes ecology, notrecreation.Bigger vs. Smaller—Green infra-structure includes large, ecologicallyimportant hubs, as well as key land-scape linkages.Framework for Growth—Greeninfrastructure can shape urban form andprovide a framework for growth. Itworks best when the framework pre-identifies both ecologically significantlands and suitable development areas.Why Do We Need to Plan andProtect Green Infrastructure?Land is being developed faster thanever. The accelerated consumptionand fragmentation of open land isAmerica’s primary conservation chal-lenge. The following statistics illustratethe problem:According to the December 2000update of the Natural Resource Con-servation Service’s National ResourcesInventory, over the 15-year period from1982 to 1997, the total acreage of de-veloped land in the United States in-creased by 34 percent (25 millionacres). From 1982 to 1992, land wasconverted at 1.4 million acres per year;from 1992 to 1997, land was convertedat 2.2 million acres a year. This rate ismore than 1.5 times the previous 10-year rate.3The 1997 American Housing Surveyconducted by the Census Bureau andHUD found that between 1993 and1997, 2.3 million acres of open spacewere converted to new single-familyhomes each year. Almost 90 percent ofthis conversion occurred where lotswere one acre or larger. These lots werepurchased by only 33 percent of newhomebuyers.4According to a July 2001 report bythe Center on Urban & MetropolitanPolicy at The Brookings Institution,“between 1982 and 1997, the amountof urbanized land in the United Statesincreased by 47 percent . . . During thissame period, the nation’s populationgrew by only 17 percent (See Table1).”5In many major metropolitan areas,green space is rapidly disappearing.The Atlanta metropolitan area has lost25 percent of its tree cover since 1973,nearly 350,000 acres. This loss equalsnearly 50 acres of trees every day.6From 1970 to 1990, metropolitan Chi-cago experienced a 35 percent increasein developed land, but a populationincrease of only four percent.7 Someof our most threatened lands are in ur-ban fringe counties, which producenearly 80 percent of America’s fruit andvegetables and more than half of itsdairy products. Many rural communi-ties also are rapidly developing.8Table 1. Population Growth versus LandDevelopment, 1982-1997. (From: WilliamFulton, Rolf Pendall, Mai Nguyen andAlicia Harrison, Who Sprawls Most?How Growth Patterns Differ Across theU.S., The Brookings Institution, SurveySeries, July 2001.Consequences ofHaphazard DevelopmentOver the past several decades, growth has leapfrogged cities and older suburbs into many once rural areas. Development is overtaking farms and forests at an increasingly rapid rate. This expansion often occurs without well-designed land-use plans, resulting in urban sprawl, which fragments natu-ral areas, isolates productive farmland and disrupts ecological functions. This has led to the:Loss of Natural Areas—For ex-ample, about 25,000 acres of wetlands continue to be lost each year to sprawl. As natural areas are diminished, so is habitat diversity. The result is a decline in the number of species and in the number of individuals of those species that survive.Fragmentation of Open Spaces—As we convert land, it is fragmented into isolated patches of open space, greatly altering the function of its natu-ral systems by increasing edge habi-tats and isolating patches, reducing both the number and diversity of na-tive species.Degradation of Water Resources—Developing wetlands and riparian zones reduces their capacity to control floods, trap sediments, filter out tox-ins and excess nutrients, and support wildlife and plant species. Decreased Ability for Nature to Respond to Change—Development has hindered nature’s ability to respond to climate change and has reduced the viability of wildlife populations by lim-iting genetic diversity and wildlife movement.Loss of “Free” Natural Services—Natural systems provide important ser-vices such as flood control, stormwater management and pollution filtration. The loss of these services increases the risk of floods and natural disasters, costing communities billions in miti-gation and disaster relief efforts.Increased Costs of Public Ser-vices—Haphazard development oftenrequires huge investments in roads,sewers, schools and other public infra-structure. As new communities arebuilt, new infrastructure needs to ex-pand to accommodate them.Increased Taxes—Many studiesshow that farming and forestry gener-ate more revenue than they require inpublic services. Haphazard residentialdevelopment has the opposite effect. Itforces communities to provide servicesacross a larger geographic area, stretch-ing municipal services and resulting inincreased infrastructure costs that leadto higher taxes.Smart GrowthThe United States grows by 2.7 mil-lion people every year, requiring anannual increase of at least 1 millionnew housing units. To control how andwhere this growth will occur, manycommunities have started smart growthinitiatives.Smart growth has been defined asdevelopment that is economicallysound, environmentally friendly andsupportive of community livability—growth that enhances our quality of life.A recent study by Rutgers Universityfound that the annual operating andmaintenance costs for roads and otherpublic facilities in New Jersey couldbe reduced by $400 million a year bydeveloping in a more compact manner.Additional studies by the BrookingsInstitution and others show that thepace of land development far exceedsthe rate of population growth inAmerica. This suggests the problem isnot growth itself, but the pattern ofgrowth.Simply put, some places are betterfor development than others. The firstprinciple of better development is de-termining where not to develop. Greeninfrastructure planning can help com-munities figure this out. Communitiesneed to make better use of existing in-frastructure to encourage more com-pact, walkable communities and todevelop a framework for shaping wheregrowth will go.Smart ConservationSmart growth programs are designedto address the problems of haphazarddevelopment and sprawl. Likewise, weneed smart conservation programs tostrategically direct conservation prac-tices. Smart conservation promotes re-source planning and protection in a waythat is proactive not reactive; system-atic not haphazard; holistic not piece-meal; multifunctional not single pur-pose; multi-jurisdictional not singlejurisdictional; and multiple scale notsingle scale.Green InfrastructureFunctions and BenefitsGreen infrastructure systems helpprotect and restore naturally function-ing ecosystems by providing a frame-work for future development that fos-ters a diversity of ecological, social,and economic benefits. These includeenriched habitat and biodiversity;maintenance of natural landscape pro-cesses; cleaner air and water; increasedrecreational opportunities; improvedhealth; and better connection to natureand sense of place. Green space alsoincreases property values and can de-crease the costs of public infrastruc-ture and services such as, flood con-trol, water treatment systems and stormwater management.Investing in green infrastructure isoften more cost effective than devel-oping conventional public worksprojects. For example, in the 1990s,New York City saved spending $4-6billion on new water filtration andtreatment plants by purchasing and pro-tecting watershed land in the CatskillMountains for about $1.5 billion. Like-wise, Arnold, Missouri, has dramati-cally reduced the need for costly di-saster relief and flood damage repair efforts by purchasing threatened flood plain properties and replacing them with greenways.Trends Influencing the Shiftto Green InfrastructureIn the past, many communities con-sidered open space to be unutilized land. The legal and philosophical framework of our land use system as-sumed land was a commodity to be consumed. Communities that did plan for open space focused almost exclu-sively on preserving land for parks, which were viewed as a community amenity. Most open space preservation efforts were site-specific and were rarely coordinated with local land-use planning. However, shifts in the way government officials think about green space, and a growing awareness among states and localities of the need to plan for green infrastructure, have resulted from a number of positive trends in-cluding:•Increased recognition of the prob-lems associated with urban sprawland landscape fragmentation;•Federal water quality mandates;•Endangered species protection,particularly the emphasis on habi-tat conservation plans that protectmultiple species and link isolatedpreserves;•Increased marketability and resalevalue of homes near open space,parks and greenways;•Community revitalization empha-sizing the value of urban naturalareas;•Smart growth policies and pro-grams at the state, regional andcommunity levels;•Green development practices de-signed to promote environmentaland economic sustainability.Green InfrastructurePlanning ApproachesLike our transportation system,green infrastructure should be carefullyplanned, designed, and expanded ascommunities grow. Green infrastruc-ture planning should be the first stepin developing land-use plans, andshould be coordinated with planningroads, sewers, water lines, and otheressential gray infrastructure. Integratedplanning and design should connectgreen and gray in a more effective, eco-nomic and sustainable network. Openspace planners should use approachessimilar to those of transportation plan-ners. Green infrastructure should be:Designed Holistically—Green in-frastructure should be designed to linkelements into a system that functionsas a whole, rather than as separate, un-related parts.Planned Comprehensively—Ourgreen space systems need to be plannedto include ecological, social and eco-nomic benefits, functions and values.Laid Out Strategically—Greenspace systems need to be laid out stra-tegically to cross multiple jurisdictionsand incorporate green space elementsat each level of government.Planned and Implemented Pub-licly—Green infrastructure systemsshould be planned and implementedwith input from the public, includingcommunity organizations and privatelandowners.Grounded in the Principles andPractices of Diverse Professions—Green space systems should be basedon sound science and should build onthe knowledge of professional disci-plines such as landscape ecology, ur-ban and regional planning, and land-scape architecture.Funded Up-Front—Like other in-frastructure systems, our green spacesystems need to be funded as primarypublic investments rather than withmoney left over after all other serviceshave been provided.Benefits of IntegratingGreen Infrastructure Intothe Land Planning ProcessThere are many benefits to utilizinga green infrastructure approach to con-servation and development planning.Green infrastructure planning:•Recognizes and addresses theneeds of people and nature;•Provides a mechanism to balanceenvironmental and economic fac-tors;•Provides a framework for integrat-ing diverse natural resource andgrowth management activities ina holistic, ecosystem-based ap-proach;•Ensures that both green space anddevelopment are placed wherethey are most appropriate;•Identifies vital ecological areasprior to development;•Identifies opportunities for the res-toration and enhancement of natu-rally functioning systems in urbanareas;•Provides a unifying vision for thefuture;•Enables communities to create asystem that is greater than the sumof its parts;•Provides communities and devel-opers with predictability and cer-tainty; and•Enables conservation and develop-ment to be planned cooperatively.Green Infrastructure PrinciplesAcross America, states, communi-ties, private landowners, public agen-cies and conservation organizations areworking to conserve and restore ourcountry’s natural life sustaining sys-tem. Although these projects are calleddifferent names (greenway planning,ecosystem management, watershedprotection, conservation development,habitat restoration, greenprints, etc.),successful initiatives are based on com-mon principles and strategies.The following principles are criti-cal to the success of green infrastruc-ture initiatives. They provide a strate-gic approach and a framework for con-servation that can advance sustainable use of land while benefiting people, wildlife and the economy.This approach includes design, plan-ning, acquisition and decision-making guidance for agencies and organiza-tions. It is our hope that public offi-cials and private citizens will use these principles as benchmarks for incorpo-rating a green infrastructure approach into land use and economic develop-ment plans and policies.Principle 1: Green infrastructure should function as the framework for conservation and development. Most of our nation’s land conserva-tion programs have focused on protect-ing individual parks, preserves, or other isolated areas with important natural or cultural resources. Yet, conservation biology teaches us that, because wild-life populations cannot flourish and ecological processes cannot function if natural connections are severed, these “islands” are unlikely to meet their conservation objectives. By contrast, the roads and highways upon which America depends—and which provide a framework for future growth and de-velopment—are planned, built, and maintained as a system of inter-con-nected parts.By making green infrastructure the framework for conservation, commu-nities can plan for interconnected, green space systems. Where isolated “islands” of nature exist, green infra-structure planning can help identify opportunities to restore the vital eco-logical connections that will maintain those protected areas. Green infrastruc-ture planning also minimizes the ad-verse impacts of rapid growth on eco-system functions and services, such as the disruption of wildlife migration corridors or the loss of riparian areas that absorb nutrients, recharge ground water supplies and reduce stormwaterrunoff.Principle 2: Design and plan greeninfrastructure before development.Restoring natural systems is far moreexpensive than protecting undevelopedland, and man-made wetlands andother restoration projects often fail tofunction as well as their natural coun-terparts over the long term. Becausegreen infrastructure provides commu-nities with an ecological framework,it is essential to identify and protectcritical ecological hubs and linkagesin advance of development. CentralPark could not be created today norcould Cook County, Illinois’, ForestPreserve System or many other of thenation’s best parks and preserves. Pro-tecting green infrastructure up frontensures that existing open spaces andworking lands are seen as essentialcommunity assets and not left vulner-able to development.In situations where development hasalready occurred, it is still importantto assess where restoring green infra-structure would benefit people and na-ture. Green infrastructure plans shouldset acquisition and restoration priori-ties and help communities identify op-portunities to reconnect isolated habi-tat islands as redevelopment opportu-nities occur.Principle 3: Linkage is key.The desired outcome for all greeninfrastructure initiatives is a greenspace “network” that functions as anecological whole. A strategic connec-tion of system components—parks,preserves, riparian areas, wetlands, andother green spaces—is critical to main-taining vital ecological processes andservices (e.g., stormwater runoff,cleaning fresh water, etc.) and to main-taining the health of wildlife popula-tions. In addition, green infrastructurerequires linkages between differentagencies, nongovernmental organiza-tions, and the private sector.The nation’s federal, state, and lo-cal highway networks holistically cre-ate a functional transportation systemfunded and supported by different lev-els of government. Why not designgreen infrastructure in the same way,taking advantage of natural stream net-works and terrain features to createphysically connected green space sys-tems that protect and restore vital eco-logical functions and linkages?Principle 4: Green infrastructurefunctions across jurisdictions and atdifferent scales.We need to design green infrastruc-ture systems to connect across urban,suburban, rural and wilderness land-scapes and to incorporate green spaceelements at the state, regional, com-munity and parcel scales. Green infra-structure strategies can be used for ini-tiatives of any size or scale, including:•Individual parcels of land or withinsingle real estate developments;•The community and regionalscale, including park, recreationand other open-space projects;•The landscape scale, encompass-ing statewide and national conser-vation and open space resources.Green infrastructure may be mostsuccessful when it functions at multiplescales in concert. For example,Toronto’s “Greening the Portlands”project focuses on regional parks,neighborhood parks, wide habitatcorridors, narrow trail corridors, andgreenspace within developments.It is important to note that green in-frastructure systems do not require, oreven imply, public ownership of allland in the system. Clearly, privatelyowned land, particularly working farmsand forests, can play an important rolein any green space system.Principle 5: Green infrastructure isgrounded in sound science and land-use planning theories and practicesConservation biology, landscapeecology, urban and regional planning,landscape architecture, geography and civil engineering contribute to the suc-cessful design and planning of green infrastructure systems.Initiatives should therefore engage and incorpo-rate the expertise of professionals from all relevant disciplines and should be based on sound science and up to date information.Principle 6: Green infrastructure is a critical public investment. Interconnected green space systems benefit people, wildlife and the economy. More importantly, strategic placement of green infrastructure re-duces the need for gray infrastructure, freeing public funds for other commu-nity needs. Green infrastructure also reduces a community’s susceptibility to floods, fires, and other natural di-sasters. Documenting these public ben-efits is an important first step toward providing adequate funding. We need to actively promote green infrastruc-ture systems to secure the funding to build and maintain green space sys-tems.Green infrastructure should be funded in the same way as our nation’s built infrastructure—as primary bud-getary items to spread the costs of con-struction and maintenance across a large pool of users and to ensure that all parts connect to achieve maximum functionality. While not funded at the same level as public works, states and communities have begun using conven-tional mechanisms to finance green in-frastructure projects—including bond referenda, real estate transfer taxes, lot-tery proceeds, dedicated development fees, direct appropriations and other mechanisms.Principle 7: Green infrastructure engages key partners and involves diverse stakeholders.Green infrastructure stakeholders have diverse backgrounds and needs.Therefore, successful efforts forge al-liances and relationships between pub-lic and private organizations. A fewexamples of how diverse organizationshave come together include:•Chicago Wilderness, a grassrootscollaboration of over 100 organi-zations representing all sectorswith an interest in the region.•Keep America Growing, designedto create partnerships to balancethe demands for growth and devel-opment with the protection of vi-tal working lands.•The Cooper River Wildlife Corri-dor Initiative in South Carolina,which uses an agreement for com-mon land management practiceswith DuPont, Amoco, MedwayPlantations, Cypress Gardens, andthe Francis Marion National For-est.ConclusionEvery state and local governmenthas a long-range transportation plan.Growing communities also have de-tailed plans for improving their air-ports, sewage treatment plants, tele-communications facilities and otherpublic infrastructure. Just as these com-munities need to upgrade and expandtheir gray infrastructure, they needplans to upgrade and expand their greeninfrastructure.Green infrastructure plans provide ablueprint for conservation in the sameway that long-range transportationplans provide a blueprint for futureroads or transit lines. Green infrastruc-ture plans can create a framework forfuture growth while ensuring that sig-nificant natural resources will be pre-served for future generations. They caneven reduce opposition to new devel-opment by assuring civic groups andenvironmental organizations thatgrowth will occur only within a frame-work of expanded conservation andopen space lands.Savvy states and communities arestarting to think about green space in amore thoughtful and systematic way.They realize that green infrastructureis not a frill—it is smart conservationfor the twenty-first century.Endnotes1 Charles E. Little, Greenways forAmerica, The Johns Hopkins Uni-versity Press, Baltimore and Lon-don, 1989.2 The President’s Council on Sustain-able Development, Towards a Sus-tainable America—AdvancingProsperity, Opportunity, and aHealthy Environment for the 21stCentury, U.S. Government Print-ing Office, 1999.3 United States Department of Agricul-ture, Natural Resource Conserva-tion Service, National ResourcesInventory, revised December 2000(available at /t e c h n i c a l/N R I/1997/summary_report/index.html).4United States Census Bureau andDepartment of Health and UrbanDevelopment, American HousingSurvey, 1997.5William Fulton, Rolf Pendall, MaiNguyen and Alicia Harrison, WhoSprawls Most? How Growth Pat-terns Differ Across the U.S., TheBrookings Institution, Survey Se-ries, July 2001 (available at/dybdocroot/ur-ban/fulton-pendall.htm).6Fen Montaigne, “There Goes theNeighborhood,”Audubon, March-April 2000.7 Chicago Wilderness, Summary of theBiodiversity Recovery Plan, 1999(available at http:///index.cfm).8American Farmland Trust, see.。