Green Infrastructure Planning
Green infrastructure (green roofs, rain gardens, bioswales, etc.) is one popular strategy that cities use to enhance resilience and provide multiple ecosystem services. Yet my research shows that in practice, green infrastructure studies and plans tend to focus on one or a few benefits and do not evaluate synergies or tradeoffs between different social and ecological services and disservices. This is problematic because the spatial distribution of green infrastructure has important justice implications. In my work I unpack these complexities, which I term the "politics of green infrastructure planning", with the ultimate goal of informing more strategic and equitable green infrastructure planning.
Illustrative Publications
Hoover, Fushcia-Ann, Sara Meerow, Emma Coleman, Zbigniew J. Grabowski, Timon McPhearson. 2023. “Why go green? Comparing rationales and planning criteria for green infrastructure in U.S. city plans.” Landscape and Urban Planning. Link
Meerow, Sara, Alysha M. Helmrich, Riley Andrade, Kelli Larson. 2021. "How do heat and flood risk drive residential green infrastructure implementation in Phoenix, Arizona? Urban Ecosystems. Link
Meerow, Sara, Mukunth Natarajan, David Krantz. 2021. "A review of green infrastructure performance in arid and semi-arid environments." Urban Water Journal. Link
Meerow, Sara. 2020. “The politics of multifunctional green infrastructure planning in New York City.” Cities. Link
Meerow, Sara. 2019. “A Green Infrastructure Spatial Planning model for evaluating ecosystem service tradeoffs and synergies across three coastal megacities.” Environmental Research Letters. Link
Zhang, Zhenzhen, Sara Meerow, Joshua P. Newell, Mark Lindquist. 2019. “Enhancing Landscape Connectivity through Multifunctional Green Infrastructure Corridor Modeling and Design.” Urban Forestry & Urban Greening. Link
Meerow, Sara and Joshua Newell. 2017. “Spatial planning for multifunctional green infrastructure: Growing resilience in Detroit” Landscape and Urban Planning. Link