Green Infrastructure Planning by Ian Mell

Author:Ian Mell
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Lund Humphries
Published: 2019-03-31T16:00:00+00:00

Case Study

Chicago—managing the city’s water

Chicago is a city that suffers annual surface water flooding, with the associated damage caused to homes, and has worked extensively with water sensitive design and SuDS to mitigate these issues at a city and local level. As has been discussed, the Chicago River has been re-engineered by the city, the MWRD and the US Army Corps to ensure it flows away from Lake Michigan into specifically created ‘forest preserve wetlands’ (i.e. wetlands within forest preserves) as part of their forest preserve sites that promote seasonal flooding. Chicago has also looked at ways to integrate more effective control of its water resources through the management of parks, which have included improving the connectivity of linear greenways and water bodies. In addition, the city has promoted the inclusion of SuDS in new urban development to limit localised on-street flooding, for example in South Chicago where schools, public buildings and new homes are being fitted with bioswales and rain gardens. Although these are small interventions, the growing number of such investments has led to a significant cumulative positive impact being identified for storm water management. There is also a growing understanding, promoted by organisations such as the Center for Neighborhood Technology (CNT), that individuals can be more actively engaged in storm water protection at a household level. They have invested in a series of programmes that educate people in how to integrate rain gardens onto their property, as well as the use of rain barrels and other small-scale interventions to lower on-site and on-street surface water runoff. The CNT also offers loans to homeowners to buy the materials to implement SuDS projects. This multi-level approach has placed Chicago, alongside cities such as New York and Philadelphia, at the forefront of SuDS and water management in the USA.

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