New York City Green Infrastructure Program - Implementation Status and Adaptive Management

摘要

Initiated in 2011, the NYC Green Infrastructure Program (the Program) was created to implement green infrastructure to manage stormwater runoff and to reduce combined sewer overflows (CSO) and improve water quality in NYC waterways. New York City Department of Environmental Protection (DEP) is the lead agency for the Program. The Program has as its main goal to improve local water quality through two mechanisms. First, green infrastructure is helping DEP to work toward a CSO volume reduction of 1.67 billion gallons on an annual basis in areas served by conventional combined sewer systems. Second, DEP has recently expanded green infrastructure into high priority areas served by separate storm sewer systems to reduce stormwater runoff pollution and mitigate flooding. Through the Program, DEP and its partner agencies have, to date, built over 4,000 green infrastructure assets and continue to scale up green infrastructure implementation on public and private property citywide. DEP expects to achieve 507 MG/year CSO reduction by 2020 largely through implementation of rain gardens in the public right of way. The next generation of NYC GI implementation will include private property retrofit incentives and new stormwater regulations. Key challenges to Program growth include identifying when to use and how to modify approaches taken by more traditional infrastructure programs to accommodate the highly distributed nature of the Program and maintaining a flexible framework as the Program grows exponentially. This manuscript introduces the Program and its successes in implementing novel green infrastructure solutions within a large, distributed, urban network of assets. It concludes with a discussion of the remaining challenges facing the program and discusses the opportunities for future growth within the broader context of meeting NYC's sustainability goals.