Welcome to the UMD Environmental Finance Center’s Green Infrastructure Financing Map!
Here you will find incredible green infrastructure financing stories from diverse communities across the country showcased in an interesting and accessible way.
Green infrastructure is an approach to resource management decision-making that considers the interaction between natural areas and the build environment and looks to use natural systems to address environmental, economic, and social priorities.
At the regional scale, this tends to refer to the network of natural areas that provides habitat, flood protection, cleaner air, and cleaner water. At a more local or site scale, green infrastructure often refers to stormwater management systems that mimic nature by soaking up and storing water.
The benefits of green infrastructure extend beyond the environmental. From a financing perspective green infrastructure can reduce implementation costs; deliver benefits that serve multiple community priorities; engage the private sector and spur behavior change through the marketplace; and provide return on investment to local economies.
To illustrate this, with generous support from the Environmental Protection Agency, the EFC has developed this interactive map that uses infographics to share the stories of 20 communities from across the country that represent a diverse collection of sizes, geographies, resource protection drivers, and financing approaches.
See something here you would like to try in your community? Want to learn more?
The state of green infrastructure is constantly and quickly evolving. These stories are a snapshot of community efforts at the time of the date stamp at the bottom of the graphic. If your community is represented here and something needs correcting or updating, we want to know. Contact Jennifer Cotting EFC’s Research Associate for Green Infrastructure.
We recognize that hundreds more communities across the country are turning to green infrastructure and supporting those efforts in very creative ways. If you think your community should be featured here, we’d love to hear from you. Again, contact Jennifer Cotting, EFC’s Research Associate for Green Infrastructure, with your story.