Green Infrastructure Program

What is Green Infrastructure?

Runoff from stormwater is a major cause of water pollution in urban areas. It carries trash, bacteria, heavy metals, and other pollutants through storm sewers into local waterways. Heavy rainstorms can cause flooding that damages property and infrastructure.

Historically, communities have used gray infrastructure—systems of gutters, pipes, and tunnels—to move stormwater away from where it falls and direct it either to treatment plants or straight into local water bodies. Green infrastructure uses natural materials to filter and absorbs stormwater where it falls.

According to the EPA, the term “green infrastructure” refers to “the range of measures that use plant or soil systems, permeable pavement or other permeable surfaces or substrates, stormwater harvest and reuse, or landscaping to store, infiltrate, or evapotranspirate stormwater and reduce flows to sewer systems or to surface waters.”