Green Infrastructure

The use Green Infrastructure to Protect Environmentally Sensitive Areas and Integrate Nature Into the City priority program seeks to improve environmental, recreational, and transportation functions and improve the connection between people and the environment. This priority program addresses a key Imagine Austin goal of integrating nature into the city. Green infrastructure, as broadly defined in Imagine Austin is “strategically planned and managed networks of natural lands, parks, working landscapes, other open spaces, and green stormwater controls that conserve and enhance ecosystems and provide associated benefits to human populations.”

The Green Infrastructure Priority Program Implementation Team (GIPPIT) was chartered with the goal of managing Austin’s urban and natural ecosystems in a coordinated and sustainable manner. The GIPPIT objectives are as follows:

Continue public investment in green infrastructure
Incentivize and/or require private investment in green infrastructure
Maximize ecosystem function and services provided by green infrastructure on city-owned land
Improve inter-departmental collaboration and coordination in the management of city-owned lands

Game Changer

Highlights

Challenges

Game Changer

Game Chager

A key gamechanger for the restoration and enhancement of green infrastructure in Austin since the adoption of Imagine Austin has been a long-overdue focus on advancing racial equity.

Austin has a extensive history of systemic racism and racial inequity that continues today. Communities of color have been excluded, marginalized, and discriminated against as a result of City policies and practices. In an effort to address racial inequity in Austin, City Council passed Resolution No. 20150507-027 in 2015, which directed the City Manager to evaluate the impact of

existing city policies and practices on racial equity and develop an Equity Assessment Tool that can be used across City departments. The Equity Office was created in 2016 to focus on advancing equity in all aspects of City operations.

The City of Austin defines racial equity as the condition when race no longer predicts a person’s quality of life outcomes in our community. To better understand and evaluate the relationship between green infrastructure and quality of life outcomes, the City hired a local environmental planning firm to prepare a Green Infrastructure Strengths and Gaps Assessment. The report showed significant disparities in access to green infrastructure—such as tree canopy and green space—for communities of color and low-income communities. This means less shade, hotter temperatures, more flooding, and degraded water quality. Census tracts with the least amount of green infrastructure coincided with the census tracts with the worst health outcomes and most social vulnerability. This report was supplemented by other studies and assessments to help staff identify critical gaps in the green infrastructure network, including:

A study conducted by Watershed Protection focused on stream corridors in the Blackland Prairie ecosystem to better understand the unique environmental sensitivities of these corridors as well as the specific challenges we need to address to protect and enhance them.
The Urban Forest Inventory released by the U.S. Forest Service that estimated the quantity, health, composition, and benefits of Austin’s urban trees and forest.
The Our Parks, Our Future Plan (adopted by City Council in 2018) which conducted a thorough assessment of the condition and quality of parks to provide a strong data-driven baseline to inform prioritization and track implementation progress over time.

These disparities in green infrastructure have developed and deepened over decades. Addressing them will require significant investment, community collaboration, and innovative solutions. The City has made measured progress on reducing these gaps over the last five years by centering equity in the development of programs, plans, projects, and partnerships. Examples include:

The adoption of the Climate Equity Plan by City Council in September 2021. The plan set a goal of equitably reaching net-zero community-wide greenhouse gas emissions by 2040. The plan was also created with an intentional focus on engaging racially and economically diverse residents about the challenges, barriers, and opportunities facing historically excluded groups. Additionally, each strategy in the plan was evaluated through an equity tool that accounted for outcomes related to health, affordability, accessibility, community capacity, cultural preservation, accountability, and a just transition to green jobs.
The creation of the Austin Civilian Conservation Corps (ACCC) in 2020. The City of Austin, along with community partners, launched the ACCC program to help Austinites who have been economically impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic to earn income, serve their community, and gain skills that can lead to new sustainable careers. There are many different types of work available through the ACCC, including landscape preservation and tree care, wildfire mitigation, green building and solar installation, and public art installation.
The creation of a Floodplain Reforestation Program which partners with volunteers and TreeFolks to plant tree seedlings and saplings along Blackland Prairie creeks in the Eastern Crescent. This work complements the larger Central Texas Floodplain Restoration Program that TreeFolks has created for public and private landowners within a six-county region. Because the creeks in the Blackland Prairie typically have very little canopy cover, these efforts help restore healthy riparian forests—enhancing water quality, wildlife habitat, and the well-being of surrounding communities.

To learn more about the definition and benefits of green infrastructure, please visit: www.austintexas.gov/atxgreen

Highlights

Land Acquisition

The Parkland Dedication and Acquisition Program has used 2018 bond funding as well as parkland dedication requirements to acquire parkland in high priority areas—investing $43 million and expanding park service to approximately 20,000 Austinites over the last 5 years. In the last 20 years, over 80% of parkland investments have been in the Eastern Crescent, a historically under-invested area of the city.
2018 bond funding has also been used to permanently preserve an additional 5,800 acres of wildlands. The Water Quality Protection Lands helps keep water clean and flowing in Austin’s aquifers, springs, greenbelts, and parks while the Balcones Canyonlands Preserve protects the habitat of many endemic and imperiled species, including cave and spring invertebrates, aquatic salamanders, rare plants, and the endangered Golden-cheeked Warbler.

Land Management

The City of Austin adopted the new 2015 International Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Code on April 9, 2020 and began implementing the code at the beginning of 2021. The new WUI code includes requirements and best practices to ensure that homes and businesses near wildland areas are protected from the next big fire.
In 2020, the Parks and Recreation Department (PARD) established a Land Management Program and is the process of creating a land management plan and climate vulnerability analysis for approximately 10,000 acres of parkland natural areas. This scientific guiding document will be comprised of a site analysis, climate analysis and vulnerability map, management goals, and appropriate restoration strategies. Completion is estimated early in calendar year 2023. Also during this time, PARD Land Management staff have planned or implemented 385 acres of grassland and woodland restoration treatments, started a PARD prescribed burn team, established cooperative agreements with six local agencies for wildland fire management, drafted trail master plans and sign plans for the Austin Nature Preserve System, installed 1.6 miles of shaded fuel break, and facilitated almost 20 research projects on parkland.
The Watershed Protection Department manages open space around the city that is acquired from property donations, voluntary home buyouts, or because the property contains stormwater infrastructure (such as ponds). The department works with neighborhood groups and partner organizations on collaborative stewardship of many of these properties to create amenities like wildflower meadows, restoration areas, community gardens, and trails.
Austin Water won first place in the People’s Choice Category of the EPA Outstanding Green Infrastructure and Low Impact Development Competition for a project that manages stormwater runoff in sensitive habitat areas in its Balcones Canyonlands Preserve. This work connects forest fragments, restores diverse native flora and fauna, and recharges karst features on critical conservation lands.

Programs and Partnerships

The City of Austin’s Office of Sustainability launched a new mini grant program focused on food justice, which offers up to $3,000 in grant funding to projects supporting people in our community most negatively impacted by food-related injustice. The program intends to provide flexible support for organizations leading transformational change in how our food is produced, sold, and consumed.
The Rain Catcher Pilot Program is a new approach to stormwater management that will determine how the City changes the way it thinks about stormwater and creek health in the future. The Watershed Protection Department is collaborating with Austin Water, the Development Services Department, and the non-profits Urban Patchwork and The Nature Conservancy to encourage the installation of rain gardens and cisterns and the planting of trees that can help people save money while addressing water issues on their property.
The City of Austin’s Youth Forest Council is an immersive, yearlong, paid internship connecting young people (ages 16-19) in Austin to careers that support trees and our communities. Youth Forest Council members work with Urban Forest Program professionals to plan community activities and grow their own connection to Austin’s natural spaces.

Challenges

Climate Change and Natural Systems

For decades, humans have relied on fossil fuels to power our lives. When we burn fossil fuels to heat and cool our homes, fuel our cars, and power up our electronics, greenhouse gases are released into the atmosphere, causing the Earth to warm and our air quality to worsen. Austin is already experiencing climate impacts through heat, drought, flooding, and wildfires, and we can expect these to get worse as our climate continues to change. More frequent and more severe events will strain our natural resources and increase risks for our community.

Here in Austin, climate impacts threaten our unique natural environment, including our creeks, rivers, springs, urban forest, wildlife, and protected open spaces. As the effects of climate change become more frequent and intense, these systems could be permanently altered and fail to support the quality of life we have come to expect. Climate change will impact the ability of trees and natural areas to deliver ecosystem benefits like clean air and water. With further changes to the climate, the loss of benefits and services will continue, and the chance to significantly restore and recover our natural systems will be limited.

The Climate Equity Plan was adopted by City Council in September 2021. The plan included a section for natural systems that recommended looking at opportunities to protect, restore, and expand our natural lands, working lands, tree canopy, and urban public lands while prioritizing equity, enhancing resilience, and maximizing co-benefits. Natural systems are one of the few ways to achieve “negative emissions” by capturing, removing, and storing carbon from the atmosphere, known as carbon sequestration. They are also a unique strategy for climate change mitigation because they provide a variety of other benefits to communities related to health and wellness, quality of life, ecological health, and safety and resilience.

Urbanization and Population Growth

Rapid population growth and urbanization present tremendous challenges for Austin’s natural systems and green infrastructure. The expanding population requires new land development, which displaces forests, grasslands, and waterways and the ecological functions that soils and vegetation provide. Unmanaged, this causes reductions in tree canopy, shade, and farmland and increases in stormwater runoff and urban temperatures. And the growth also drives market demand and higher land prices, complicating efforts to purchase natural lands for public use and contributing to the displacement of more socially vulnerable residents.

The good news is that our understanding and protection of green infrastructure is greatly increasing. In an increasingly urban setting, it is ever more important to maximize the function of the remaining green infrastructure for human and environmental health. Imagine Austin’s emphasis on the importance of green infrastructure helps with a larger effort to identify ways to protect, restore, and manage these areas using projects, programs, and regulations. These efforts are designed to ensure that both the beauty and function of Austin’s green infrastructure remain strong and benefit all Austinites.

Program Champion:

Erin Wood

Watershed Protection

Housing and Planning

Development Services

Public Works

Parks and Recreation

Austin Water

Austin Energy

Office of Sustainability

Austin Fire

Real Estate Services

Austin Transportation