Supporting a Regional Green Infrastructure Network Through Local Policy and Action

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The Coastal Resilience for Greater Baltimore project team has identified five fundamental strategies for using green infrastructure to enhance community and regional resilience to coastal storms and climate change:

• Natural Resource Protection: Preserve lands with valuable and vulnerable resources providing hazard mitigation and other co-benefits, including floodplains, wetlands, forest, stream systems, steep slopes, hydric and highly erodible soils, and important habitat areas.
• Urban Forest Enhancement and Restoration: Maintain, enhance, and restore tree canopy in urban and suburban communities to reduce stormwater runoff, ameliorate the urban heat island effect, and improve air quality.
• Multi-Benefit Green Stormwater Infrastructure: Retrofit developed areas to reduce impervious surface and incorporate best management practices such as bioretention areas, green streets, and green roofs in order to reduce vulnerability to flooding.
• Critical Infrastructure Protection: Use green infrastructure to reduce extreme weather risks to critical infrastructure, including key transportation corridors, power production and transmission facilities, hospitals, and emergency management centers.
• Coastal Defense: Preserve/restore natural habitat and introduce nature-based practices (e.g., living shorelines) to protect against coastal flooding, storm surge, and sea level rise.

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