We’ve finally published our work that begun at a 2012 workshop sponsored by the National Academies Keck Futures Initiative. While this project looked generally at how we can incorporate ecosystem service concepts into planning in the United States, we first looked at stormwater management as a starting point:
BenDor, Todd K., Vivek Shandas, Brian Miles, Kenneth Belt, and Lydia Olander. 2018. Ecosystem Services and U.S. Stormwater Management: An Agenda for Improving Urban Stormwater Decisions. Environmental Science and Policy 88: 92-103 | LINK
Abstract: Green stormwater infrastructure (GI) is gaining traction as a viable complement to traditional “gray” infrastructure in cities across the United States. As cities struggle with decisions to replace deteriorating stormwater infrastructure in the face of looming issues such as population growth and climate change, GI may offer a costeffective, efficient, and sustainable approach. However, decision makers confront challenges when integrating GI within city plans, including uncertainties around GI capacity and maintenance, resistance to collaboration across city governance, increasingly inflexible financing, accounting practices that do not incorporate the multiple values of GI, and difficulties in incorporating ecological infrastructure into stormwater management. This paper presents an ecosystem services framework for assessing the context-specific needs of decision makers, while considering the strengths and limitations of GI use in urban stormwater management. We describe multiple dimensions of the planning system, identify points of intervention, and illustrate two applications of our framework – Durham, North Carolina and Portland, Oregon (USA). In these case studies, we apply our ecosystem services framework to explicitly consider tradeoffs to assist planning professionals who are considering implementation of GI. We conclude by offering a research agenda that explores opportunities for further evaluations of GI design, implementation, and maintenance in cities.
Some of our other work on this topic has been published earlier, including:
BenDor, Todd K., Danielle Spurlock, Sierra Woodruff, and Lydia Olander. 2017. A research agenda for ecosystem services in American environmental and land use planning. Cities 60 (Part A): 260-271 | LINK
Salzman, J, Arnold, C, Garcia, R, Hirokawa, K, Jowers, K, LeJava, J, Peloso, M, and Olander, L. “The Most Important Current Research Questions in Urban Ecosystem Services.” Duke Environmental Law & Policy Forum (2014): 1-47 | LINK