A year ago today, we published this post, reviewing the initial outline of our Framework of GSI Practice that a member learning circle developed. The project has a long evolution, but was spurred to the forefront recently by what I’ll call “the perfect storm.” In this post, I’ll describe that storm and what happened in its aftermath.
1. The Perfect Storm
First, there were the results of our 2022 State of Public Sector GSI Survey showing that while seven best implementation practices shown below were prioritized at least some of the time, focus on them was nowhere near prolific enough to be called a “standard.”
Just a few short weeks after our survey was published, The Water Environment Federation (WEF) issued its 2022 MS4 Needs Assessment Survey results. They revealed that green infrastructure was one of the greatest areas of need for information and technical resources and this result mimicked those for the three most recent MS4 surveys.
A few months after our survey was published a new book, Connect, Innovate, Scale-up was published. Directed at social innovation networks like the Exchange, it suggested that scale in a field, especially a relatively new one like green stormwater infrastructure (GSI), demands the development of an organizing framework. We had no such framework.
2. The Aftermath
Clearly, someone needed to take the lead on framing GSI’s best practices and sharing them with others through training programs. Our members stepped up to create and refine the Framework’s outline and, with the aid of Exchange member Greenprint Partners, to complete two of nine chapters, Center Equity, and Build Buy-in in 2024. A third, Design & Build, is due to be published shortly.
Two courses have been developed to communicate the Framework’s tenets to members and nonmembers of the Exchange. The first, GSI Foundations, provides an overview of the Framework’s basic principles and best practices. It was offered to members last fall and will be available asynchronously to the public this summer. The second, GSI and Equity, was offered synchronously to members last fall and will be offered again this year. Both courses can be customized to meet the needs of specific audiences.
As I noted last month, the results of a new survey, based on the Framework, are driving the development of new programming, to include peer learning circles, webinars, and training programs, in the current year. The collective learnings from these programs will be repurposed to build out the remaining chapters in the Framework of Practice.
I invite you to visit our website to review and use this member-driven tool, which is both (1) an outline of the steps members believe local governments and stormwater agencies must follow to create strong GSI programs in their jurisdictions and (2) an online living compendium of GSI principles, best practices and case studies designed to benefit practitioners across sectors.
