As our world becomes increasingly urbanized, green infrastructure can play an important role in planning and managing for resilient cities. Although broad generalized recommendations are useful, local planners and practitioners increasingly need site-specific data to guide design and management and ensure these places provide meaningful benefits to people and nature alike. This presentation demonstrates three case studies in which ecological datasets on biodiversity and ecosystem services have been merged with social data from surveys, interviews, and storytelling to guide site-scale planning and practice.
Results/Conclusions
We will share three case studies in which a diverse range of social-ecological datasets are shaping on-the-ground projects, including:
(1) a project to implement site-scale green infrastructure broadly across an urban watershed, drawing on lessons from behavioral science and stormwater modeling;
(2) a project to inform urban landscape plant choices, drawing on data from pollinator surveys, irrigation records, maintenance logs, and survey data on aesthetic ratings; and
(3) a project to re-imagine a two-mile stretch of floodplain buyouts and parkland, drawing on data collected by citizen scientists and personal stories shared by local residents.
Collectively, these case studies demonstrate how a diverse range of cross-disciplinary and non-traditional datasets can be used to shape green infrastructure design and management in cities.