Traveling through the landscapes on the KTX train, my ears first told me about the terrain before my eyes did. The swelling and unswelling of my eardrums made me look up and out the window to see the rolling hillsides and mountains through which we were passing. Villages, towns and cities were tucked down into the mountain valleys, with the green hillsides spreading above them. I didn't realize that Korea was so mountainous - according to wikipedia, the country doesn't have any natural plains or lowlands. Geographic lows are caused by erosion of the mountains. This landscape was beautiful to me because you could look out across the borders of any town and see the mountains in the background. They created a natural border on development and reminded me of our small place in nature.
It also reminded me of my trip across Wyoming.
I loved these little towns surrounded by nature. However, in many parts of the United States, suburban sprawl has become a huge problem.
Lack of urban planning has allowed housing developments to spread across our plains and completely dominate the landscape. According to the EPA, under natural conditions only about 10% of annual rainfall becomes surface runoff. Unchecked development covers thousands of acres in impermeable pavement which interrupts the natural water cycle of precipitation, infiltration and evaporation. It is not the percentageof impervious cover in the United States that is the problem. It is its concentration in small areas of high population density. Smaller watersheds within larger watersheds may be more than 60% impervious, causing a serious degrading of water quality*. Small storms of perhaps less than a 1/4 acre-inch which normally might be intercepted or infiltrated can result in flooding of our cities, as the water has nowhere to go. Flooding causes numerous health and safety problems for humans, and damages our environment. Standing flood waters spread bacteria and mold, damage property, and wash dangerous debris from the street into our backyards and living areas. Floods also wash pollutants into our sewer systems. Flood waters increase the temperature of stream water by allowing water exposed to the sun and air and hot pavement into our streams. They change the chemical make up of streams, altering the pH, nitrate and sulfate concentrations, and increasing the metals, organics, BOD and TDS loads. Floods also increase erosion, which can kill off both native flora and fauna.
Green infrastructure (GI) and low-impact development (LID) are two concepts that seek to integrate the water cycle into urban planning, rather than ignore it and deal with its consequences later. Green infrastructure includes green roofs, permeable pavement, rain gardens, rain barrels, and tree and shrub planting. Green infrastructure differs from more traditional drainage ponds, swales, and sewers in that GI seeks to intercept the water before it hits the ground and/or allow it to infiltrate the ground at its source. This will cause more water to be evaporated back into the atmosphere and also infiltrate the ground and recharge our groundwater. Soil is a natural filter that can remove many toxic concentrations of substances from water before it flows into streams. Low impact development is similar to GI in that it seeks to model nature's treatment of precipitation at its source with micro-scale solutions that intercept, detain, evaporate and store water at its point of impact. These solutions are often inexpensive and sustainable, such as breaks in pavement where trees are planted. Another important concept being integrated into LID is watershed planning or the ecosystem approach instead of city planning. Watershed planning puts development back on nature's scale, by incorporating the natural drainage patterns of the watershed, such as floodplains, stream channels, forests and wetlands, into a design, rather than covering them over or diverting them.
Luckily, these concepts are being incorporated into development plans in the US and abroad. In an interview with Michael Connor, undersecretary of the US Interior on Wednesday, April 15th, 2015, at the 7th World Water Forum in Daegu, South Korea, he said that one of the six priorities of the US Interior was landscape-level planning. The goal is to use science as the foundation to manage resources and direct development. We need to better understand our landscapes, and direct development where it is appropriate. We need to preserve habitat to keep its functionality within our ecosystem. We need to use renewable energy sources where appropriate.
Several organizations present at the World Water Forum were engaging in GI and LID and directing this issue head on, creating opportunities for investment and jobs for our future. The organization IUCN is pivoting the conversation to regard nature itself as infrastructure. It encourages incorporating natural planning into an infrastructure project as a means to efficiently and effectively provide clean drinking water. It sees wetlands, forests grasslands and other natural habitats as water treatment, disposal and storage facilities. Investing in these types of structures can provide water security for low-income residents in developing neighborhoods. Like any investment strategy, costs and benefits of the project should be considered at the outset. However, benefits are now being redefined to demonstrate how environmental infrastructure provides a return on investment.
I would like to provide a counter point. A side note to this discussion is the anti-green economy-movement. There are those who believe that quantifying land preservation actually takes away from the true value of nature. They argue that it is impossible to quantify the total value of open space, and therefore open space planning might be decided on erroneous values of economic importance. There may be value to a natural resource that is not currently being measured. Indigenous systems of value are also not highly represented in the green economy. Rather, ecosystems should be preserved on principle alone, rather than economic value. I am definitely on the side of this argument. This would be my argument for every open space planning project, if we lived in an ideal world. However, we do not live in an ideal world. During my trip to the World Water Forum, I learned that many, if not all, planning decisions are based on compromise, coordination, and communication. GI and LID are a step forward into incorporating nature back into our lifestyles, built landscapes, and infrastructure.
The WISE-UP to Climate project is another initiative that seeks to incorporate floods plains, watersheds and wetlands into existing built infrastructure such as dams, levees, and channels as a way to mitigate against the flood damages produced by climate change. They work to form partnerships to achieve their goals and incorporate the needs of under-represented stakeholders into their planning. They recognize that there are competing demands for water use and the functions of a natural infrastructure project can have different values to different sectors.
A lecture co-hosted by the Millennial Challenge Corporation and US Water Partnerships emphasized the role that governance has to take in LID projects. They also emphasized the need for partnerships across all sectors.
I was able to enter into a discussion on the role of multi-level governance and partnerships with presenters from the Netherlands at the Citizens Forum. They hosted a stimulating lecture on GI to mitigate climate change, in which they emphasized taking a big geographic approach to planning and thinking long-term. GI can promote diversity and emphasize the importance of local place and people. They said it was important to involve all parties concerned. I mentioned how in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy, the US and local NJ government wanted to install dunes along the entire NJ coast as a way to protect against sea level rise. However, a couple of municipalities were suing the state to oppose the measure, citing loss of property value. Was this an example of the failure of stakeholder involvement? The speaker emphasized the need to start a dialogue and develop an understanding about the value-added services of ecosystem investment. Natural infrastructure can help raise local value. People do not like change because they believe they will need to bear a cost up front. However, the benefits to GI and LID are diverse and not one-sided. NGOs can often help bridge the gap of understanding between government and stakeholders when implementing GI and LID projects. Upon hearing that, that moment was my first awakening to the fact that lessons learned in other countries, including developing countries, could be applied here in the United States, right in my backyard.
GI and LID projects provide a way to incorporate nature's structure and geochemistry back into our drinking water, flood water, and waste water management infrastructure as a way to mitigate against flooding and lower the costs of management and treatment. GI and LID projects can range in size from micro-projects to landscape-level planning. However, what all projects have in common is the need for economic efficiency, diversification of return on investment, value-added services for the local population, incorporation of natural drainage patterns, the use of native species, science-based approach, and communication across all stakeholders and investors.
Footnote:
*United State Environmental Protection Agency, Our Built and Natural Environments: A Technical Review of the Interactions Among Land Use, Transportation, and Environmental Quality, 2nd Edition. EPA, Washington, D.C: 2013
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