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EPA maintains a series of web guides to all aspects of green infrastructure, from planning to funding and long-term maintenance. Especially useful to determine where and how green infrastructure and urban forestry can meet federal and state rules for stormwater management. Includes many case studies, tools and calculators.
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This guide is intended to help engineers, planners, developers, architects, arborists, and public officials understand how trees perform and interact in a stormwater management system, and the new technologies that are being used to increase the stormwater utility function of the urban forest, even in the densest urban environments. The presence of trees in a streetscape, neighborhood, and community can decrease the amount of stormwater runoff and pollutants that reach local waters.
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EPA’s Green Infrastructure office provides extensive support to communities planning or implementing green infrastructure projects.
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EPA’s master site for information about planning, implementing and– most significantly — funding municipal water projects to protect human health and the environment.
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EPA synthesizes the various ways costs and benefits of gray and green infrastructure can be assessed and compared. A must read for newcomers to the issue; it makes a powerful case, and shows how others can do the same. Complete document offers case studies, tools, calculators and extensive resource materials.
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EnviroAtlas is a relatively new open-access geospatial tool. It combines a series of indicator data available for the contiguous United States that is to be updated as new foundational data is released. Indicator data are organized into seven categories which include clean air, climate, clean water and biodiversity. EnviroAtlas also includes reference data on demographics, land cover, political boundaries, watershed boundaries, NPDES permit status, and impaired and listed waters.
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The EPA hopes to inspire community leaders to use green infrastructure by providing practical and successful ways to improve community cohesion, the natural environment, and residents’ health. The report summarizes different types of GI and the benefits of these approaches. The report then summarizes how communities can save money by using GI in public projects. It goes on to detail how GI can also be incorporated into private development. Establishing design guidelines is one way to influence private development. To implement these kinds of policies GI benefits must be clear articulated to decisionmakers. The report includes examples of how some communities showed how GI could increase household energy savings, reduce greenhouse gas emission, and create jobs. Additionally, it is important for communities to prioritize projects to maximize benefits. Lastly the report provides a wide range of examples from across the country and addresses water management issues for both the Eastern and Western United States. A list of all the projects associated with the program are presented at the end of the report under 6 broad categories: conceptual design, guidance development, policy review/recommendations, screening and prioritization, modeling and economic benefits.
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This EPA Green Infrastructure modeling tool supports planning and design decisions for site designers, planners, or environmental managers on a range of scales. Scales range from setting a green infrastructure target for an entire watershed to designing a green infrastructure practice for a particular site or an entire watershed. Some models can predict the water quality and water quantity impacts of green infrastructure approaches. These models cannot only predict the cost for green infrastructure but also benefits such as improvements in air quality and reduction of energy consumption. These models range from simple to complex.
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This EPA website provides green infrastructure guidance relating to construction, operation and maintenance, and common design challenges. It features links to various stormwater design manuals created by states, counties, municipalities, and nonprofits across the United States and Canada. Many modeling design tools are also available through this website to assist with compliance in local stormwater regulations and/or meeting voluntary performance standards. A large portion of this website focuses on lessons learned from past municipal projects and identifies some of the most common design and implementation challenges. Various site characteristic challenges and implementation scenarios are presented with summarized recommendations and links to supporting material.