Enhancing Sustainable Communities With Green Infrastructure

Communities across the country use green infrastructure approaches for clean air, land and water. These can include conserving, restoring, or enhancing natural areas while incorporating trees, rain gardens, vegetated roofs and other practices that mimic natural systems into developed areas to manage rainwater where it falls. Green infrastructure is integral to a sustainable community, helping protect the environment and human health while providing other social and economic benefits.

When considering green infrastructure approaches, some communities are limited by technical, regulatory, financial, and institutional obstacles that limit widespread implementation. To support these communities, EPA created a guide to help  neighborhoods, towns, cities, and regions of all sizes overcome these obstacles.

Using this guide, stakeholders can create a vision for how green infrastructure can enhance their communities, engage residents and inspire them to take action. This guide also directs readers to resources that provide more detailed information that can be tailored to communities' particular climate, goals, and circumstances.

This document covers:

• Strategies that support both sustainable communities and green infrastructure.
• How to organize stakeholders to develop a sustainable communities and green infrastructure plan.
• The different components of a sustainable communities and green infrastructure plan.