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What should you prioritise when planning for green infrastructure?
This content has been extracted from our State of Green Infrastructure asset management: Benchmarking report.
Green infrastructure (GI) can be used to enhance community resilience and provides adaptation options in the management of environmental and social risks. However, GI asset governance is often complex, with many different parties having a stake in funding and managing the deployment, operations, maintenance and monitoring of assets. These assets often include a combination of engineered and living elements.
Green infrastructure (GI) can be used to enhance community resilience and provides adaptation options in the management of environmental and social risks. However, GI asset governance is often complex, with many different parties having a stake in funding and managing the deployment, operations, maintenance and monitoring of assets. These assets often include a combination of engineered and living elements.
Prioritising GI over traditional assets
GI assets provide multiple co-benefits simultaneously, while traditional assets are typically designed to provide a single primary service. These broader benefits are often overlooked in financial decision-making which tends to favour conventional assets.
Natural, living elements may take time to establish, grow and provide their full benefits, rather than yielding maximum benefit right away. In contrast to traditional assets, which depreciate over time, GI assets appreciate in value over time. Even their “end of life” can look different, requiring rehabilitation to resume performing as intended, delivering their full range of services.
The road to GI
It’s important to have a framework to guide GI implementation. Visualising all the steps towards a successful GI plan and asset management is key to determine which assets will add the most value to the city.
Four Canadian municipalities — Vancouver, Calgary, Toronto and Peel — were benchmarked as national leaders in GI. A survey and structured interviews informed an evaluation of their financial strategies, infrastructure condition, life cycle management and service levels. The survey focused on the municipalities’ processes and assessed them against these nine categories:
1. Setting direction
2. Programming
3. Preparation
4. Implementation
5. GI asset monitoring
6. Management system review
7. People and organisation
8. Data and information
9. Technology
The report shows that the number of years an organisation (municipality) has operated its GI program played an influential role in its effectiveness and maturity. Longer durations allowed for more refined design, construction and maintenance practices, as well as better adaptation to local conditions and challenges. This extended experience also facilitated the development of best practices and more resilient infrastructure.
Seven tips for a successful GI plan
Applying a successful GI plan to your municipality starts with mapping out the key elements involved. Cities such as Toronto, Vancouver, Calgary and Peel Region studied in the State of Green Infrastructure report built their GI plans by following these seven recommendations:
Regulatory context
In the US, GI is used to improve water quality and meet regulations. In Canada, it is driven by individual municipal priorities and a broader recognition of GI’s benefits and co-benefits.
Internal leadership
Having a champion or multiple champions (particularly within the leadership team) is critical for successful GI. A strong vision and leadership buy-in are key to setting clear delivery targets.
Asset data
Despite varying levels of data maturity, issues persist with data policy, data silos, obtaining up-to-date data from developers and incorporating legacy data into new asset development plans.
Risks
GI projects carry many uncertainties and risks, from the technical aspects (design, construction, operations, maintenance, etc.) to external factors such as climate change, lack of contractor experience with GI assets, challenges in forecasting funding needs, among others.
Institutional knowledge transfer
GI development often involves different teams, and it is key for those teams to share knowledge to fully understand a project’s impacts. Developing plans to transfer institutional knowledge and to monitor and maintain assets helps projects meet their intended performance goals throughout their life cycle.
Networks
Many of the participating municipalities emphasised the value of internal and external collaboration. Organisations like the GI Leadership Exchange (GILE) and the British Columbia Water and Wastewater Association (BCWWA) GI Community of Practice are important for knowledge sharing, collaboration and support.
Funding for full asset life cycle
Securing funding for the full life cycle of GI assets proved to be a consistent challenge. GI assets have different funding requirements from traditional assets, with proportionately lower upfront capital costs but proportionately higher operation and maintenance costs. If these needs aren’t considered in municipal budgets, it can be difficult to secure funding. Additionally, the initial construction of GI assets is often given priority over the long-term operational, monitoring and maintenance costs, making it hard to find funding for the full asset life cycle.
Identifying the strengths and weaknesses your municipality has on each of these fronts is essential for implementing a successful GI asset management plan.
Want to go deeper?
Dive deeper into green infrastructure’s challenges and learn more about the best strategies for GI from the experiences of four municipalities across Canada. Download the full State of Green Infrastructure asset management: Benchmarking report.
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