Big 3 Takeaways- Beyond Hydrology: Exploring the benefits of Green Stormwater Infrastructure
The Current Webinar 47: Beyond Hydrology: Exploring the benefits of Green Stormwater Infrastructure featured three professionals in water management and green infrastructure (GI) who discussed their work and research on the benefits of GI from water quality, economics and ecosystem services, to community and workforce development and enhancing urban landscapes.
Miss the webinar? Watch the full recording on our YouTube channel. Don’t have time to watch the recording? Not a problem – here are three big takeaways:
- John McMaine with South Dakota State University Extension emphasized how 10-20% of impervious surface in an area can double the amount of runoff compared to natural ground cover. He also discussed a recent workshop his team hosted in South Dakota which sought to reduce the barriers homeowners face when considering GI by enabling attendees to learn by doing.
- Kelsey McDonough of the University of Bayreuth in Germany, provided an overview of her research on ecosystem services of GI. Through her work on land cover in Kansas’ Blue River Watershed, McDonough found that if you increase the percentage, density and connectivity of wetlands and natural non-forested land cover and decrease the fragmentation of wetlands you get an increase in flood regulation ecosystems services.
- Lisa Merrifield from University of Illinois Extension shared economic and societal benefits of GI. She noted the multiple reasons we are seeing an increase in green infrastructure from new municipality codes that incorporate GI guidelines to the economic benefits of GI. She sited studies demonstrating that proximity to GI results in higher home values and that retail customers are willing to pay 8-12% more for products in shopping centers with mature tree canopy. She also discussed funding for GI, noting that public projects tend to be grant funded, where private projects are primarily funded through donations.
You can watch the full webinar recording on the Network’s YouTube Channel and view the presentation slides in our media archive. For more information on the work presented in this webinar, please contact the presenters:
- John McMaine- mcmaine@sdstate.edu
- Kelsey McDonough- mcdonough@uni-bayreuth.de
- Lisa Merrifield- lmorrisn@illinois.edu