Green Infrastructure Planning for Healthier, Resilient Communities

This event is an in-person screening of this webinar; there is no virtual component.

Green Infrastructure Planning for Healthier, Resilient Communities

As communities grapple with issues such as stormwater management, flooding, urban heat loads, and air quality issues, learn about the numerous services provided by green infrastructure that improve the quality of life, resilience, and environmental and human health in communities.

At the macro level of planning, incorporating, and protecting natural areas, wetlands, stream and river corridors, unique habitats, trails, and forest canopy can begin to address issues of flooding, water quality, and air pollution while providing residents access to natural areas for recreation and human health improvements. When focusing on the micro level, green infrastructure features such as bio-swales, porous paving, tree plantings, green roofs, green parking lots, and rainwater capture address main of the same issues but at the local home and neighborhood level, creating healthy, livable places within the community and bringing nature home.

A common feature of communities is parking lots, which cover acres upon acres of land with impervious asphalt to facilitate our overuse of the automobile, and it is becoming a dominant landscape feature in many communities. They contribute to the urban heat island, which elevates temperatures in communities and has an impact on water quality and stormwater runoff that degrade our streams and rivers. They can also detract from community character and affect pedestrian and driver safety.

Green parking lots can reverse those trends by creating a landscape that not only improves the aesthetics and safety of a site but also intercepts stormwater runoff, allows infiltration, shades parked cars and paved surfaces, and promotes evapotranspiration to cool the surrounding environment.

This webinar will discuss planning for and incorporating green infrastructure on the macro and micro scale in Pennsylvania communities as well as learn about the Montgomery County Planning Commission Sustainable Green Parking Lot work.

Speaker

- Vincent Cotrone, Extension Educator, Penn State Extension
- Pattie Guttenplan, RLA & AICP, Assistant Director of Design & Outreach, Montgomery County Planning Commission

Moderator

- Peter Wulfhorst, Penn State Extension

AICP Credits: 1.25 ASLA Credits: 1.25

Group viewing brought to you by Lancaster County Planning.

Lancaster County Planning strives to provide educational opportunities for our planning partners – professional planners, municipalities, consultants, designers, engineers, local planning commissions, and interested citizens. In 2024, we will continue to provide an opportunity for our partners to join us at our office to view a mix of live and recorded webinars we have purchased or registered for from various sources on a variety of planning topics. Many of these programs will provide AICP CM and ASLA continuing education credits. Due to site license restrictions, we are not able to share our webinar access information with interested parties. For independent access, please contact the webinar provider directly.

For questions related to this event, please contact 717-299-8333 or email [email protected].

Event Venue & Nearby Stays

Conference Room 102, Lancaster County Government Center, Lancaster, United States