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What is the Green Infrastructure Center?
The Green Infrastructure Center, Inc. (GIC) was formed in 2006 to help local governments, communities, and regional planning organizations, land trusts and developers evaluate their green infrastructure assets and make plans to conserve them. The Green Infrastructure Center provides the suite of tools – economic analysis, mapping, and land use planning and asset assessment – needed by communities to protect and restore their natural assets. The center conducts projects across Virginia and the southeastern states. The staff include environmental scientists, geographers, landscape architects and planners who work as a team to help localities inventory their assets and create strategies for their conservation or restoration. We work at the regional and local scale in rural, suburban and urban environments.
What is Green Infrastructure?
Green infrastructure is made up of the interconnected network of waterways, wetlands, woodlands, wildlife habitats, and other natural areas; greenways, parks, and other conservation lands; working farms, ranches and forests; and wilderness and other open spaces that support native species, maintain natural ecological processes, sustain air and water resources and contribute to health and quality of life (McDonald, Benedict, and O’Conner, 2005). Green infrastructure assets contribute to health and quality of life, such as forests that clean the air and filter and absorb stormwater. Just as we plan for "grey infrastructure" we also need to plan for and conserve our green infrastructure.
What is Green Infrastructure Planning?
Green infrastructure planning provides an opportunity for communities to approach land use planning in a new way. By considering and inventorying environmental functions and values before development begins, land can be designated appropriately for protection and/or restoration to provide wildlife habitat, recreation, stormwater treatment, energy savings, aesthetic values, improved community health, and sustainable economies. Land planning that begins within the context of local ecological systems can ensure that development is channeled to the most appropriate areas, thereby protecting environmental functions while also saving money and energy. In already developed areas, green assets can be reconnected. Even at environmentally impaired sites where some contamination has occurred, natural systems and habitats can be restored. Most importantly, green infrastructure plans create linkages so that animals and people can move across the landscape.
In short, green infrastructure planning entails:
- Inventorying green assets and connections,
- Identifying opportunities for their protection and/or restoration, and
- Developing a coordinated strategy to channel development and re-development to the most appropriate locations.
For examples of projects implemented by the Green Infrastructure Center go to the projects page. The resources page provides additional information about ongoing green infrastructure planning projects across the country and around the world.
GIC's Strategic Plan
The Green Infrastructure Center's Strategic Plan focuses on the Center, its organizational mission, objectives, goals, and projects, and its anticipated funding needs. The Strategic Plan was revisted in 2010 at the spring GIC Board of Directors meeting and is currently being updated.
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