Green Infrastructure Maintenance: Lessons Learned from the Fassnight Creek Restoration Project at the Springfield Art Museum

Green Infrastructure Maintenance: Lessons Learned from the Fassnight Creek Restoration Project at the Springfield Art Museum

Green infrastructure projects that utilize native plants and mimic natural ecological systems are quickly becoming a favorite for designers and engineers for urban places. These projects are able to mitigate water quality and other environmental issues while improving quality of place, affording green infrastructure development an exciting future in our state and region. Despite the success of proving the importance of green infrastructure in the public sphere, even with success in designing and installing these projects, maintenance is still too infrequently considered. This is often the cause of eventual project failure.

Nick and Caleb will discuss the maintenance of green infrastructure maintenance in the context of the Fassnight Creek Restoration Project at the Springfield Art Museum. They will review failures and pitfalls and how to mitigate them at the outset of a major green infrastructure project. And, if you can’t mitigate at the outset, or haven’t, and are currently dealing with a failing or struggling green infrastructure project, they will suggest ways for turning these “failures” into opportunities for success, for sustainable maintenance, and vibrant green infrastructure projects.