It was pouring here in North Carolina the other day during a heavy afternoon storm. From my window I watched as the trees and ground got drenched while the water rolled right off of our roof. We live in a pretty wooded area and so lots of the rain is soaked up and used by the plants, like it would in an undeveloped area. But some of it – from our driveway, roof and the road – ends up gathering speed and reaching our local Bolin Creek, carrying pollutants and scouring streambanks, and sometimes causing flooding.

The more developed an area gets with more pavement, buildings and other hard surfaces, the farther away we get from a natural water cycle. The resulting hydrologic changes have impacts on both clean and reliable water. As Bob Zimmerman writes in our latest River Voices “water sustainability must begin with understanding and restoring historic natural hydrology.”

In many places, people are starting to do just this. By using “green infrastructure” – approaches that protect, restore or replicate natural function, such as rain gardens, green roofs, wetlands and pocket parks – communities are seeking to achieve healthier rivers by reducing polluted stormwater runoff and reducing flashy, peak flows. Many of these approaches provide multiple benefits – in addition to clean water, green infrastructure can provide cleaner air, energy savings, reduced urban temperatures, water supply replenishment, better human health and reduced localized flooding, collectively creating more livable communities.

Flooding, for example, is a serious problem in many places. Also in River Voices, Harriet Festing with the Center for Neighborhood Technology explains their RainReady initiative to address the problems of stormwater pollution and urban flooding together. Deploying a targeted set of community-based strategies that include planning for increased tree canopy, wetland restoration, property buyouts and increased green infrastructure as part of public right of ways and landscaping, RainReady is a great example of an innovative approach to assist people and rivers using a decentralized approaches that focus on restoring hydrologic function.

After the rain here, my little creek was flowing pretty steadily, the result of upstream development and increased stormwater runoff. Fortunately, Friends of Bolin Creek, my local watershed association, has been working to install rain gardens at a number of sites. To move from individual practices to a more holistic approach, alignment with policies and funding is needed – more on that later…

by Katherine Baer