A green highway is a roadway constructed per a relatively new concept for roadway design that integrates transportation functionality and ecological sustainability. An environmental approach is used throughout the planning, design, and the construction. The result is a highway that will benefit transportation, the ecosystem, urban growth, public health and surrounding communities.
Green Highways Partnership (GHP) is an alliance of Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), other Federal agencies, State transportation and environmental agencies, industry, trade associations, members of academia, and contractors to encourage environmentally friendly road building. [1]
Another effort to create greener highways is a research program named Asphalt Research Consortium (ACR) created by collaboration of FHWA, private institutions, and several universities. The program studies potential ways to make asphalt more environmentally sustainable which will result in improved traffic safety and reduced life-cycle cost. [2]
A 2019 research project from the Cooperative Research Program of the Transportation Research Board determined the state-of-practice in highway construction sustainability and produced a guidebook for practitioners as an aid in communicating, implementing, and evaluating sustainable highway construction. [3]
When built to standards of the concept, green highways have invaluable benefits to environment. Since they are built with permeable materials that provide superior watershed-driven stormwater management, leaching of metals and toxins into streams and rivers is prevented. Landfill usage is favorably reduced as construction involves recycled materials. In addition, by using cutting-edge technologies in design, critical habitats and ecosystems are protected from the encroachment of highway infrastructure. [4]
To develop a green highway, a project can follow guidelines provided below by GHP: [5]
Other parameters associated with green highways and green roads include:
Green highway construction can incorporate several technical elements including, but not limited to: [11]
U.S. Highway 301 Waldorf Transportation Improvements project is working towards becoming the nation’s first truly green highway by incorporating the principles of the Green Highways Partnership and green infrastructure in its earliest planning stages. [12] The project encompasses an area from MD 5 and US 301 interchange in Prince George's County to the US 301 intersection with Washington Avenue and Turkey Hill Road in Charles County. [13] It aims to improve the local traffic operation along US 301 while promoting and securing environmental stewardship. [14]
Anacostia Watershed Protection: This pilot competition is designed to support the protection and restoration of urban water resources through a holistic watershed approach to water quality management. Funding will be directed to environmentally sound, watershed projects that stress a wide range of water quality improvement strategies and targets. [15]
Infrastructure is the set of facilities and systems that serve a country, city, or other area, and encompasses the services and facilities necessary for its economy, households and firms to function. Infrastructure is composed of public and private physical structures such as roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, water supply, sewers, electrical grids, and telecommunications. In general, infrastructure has been defined as "the physical components of interrelated systems providing commodities and services essential to enable, sustain, or enhance societal living conditions" and maintain the surrounding environment.
Stormwater, also written storm water, is water that originates from precipitation (storm), including heavy rain and meltwater from hail and snow. Stormwater can soak into the soil (infiltrate) and become groundwater, be stored on depressed land surface in ponds and puddles, evaporate back into the atmosphere, or contribute to surface runoff. Most runoff is conveyed directly as surface water to nearby streams, rivers or other large water bodies without treatment.
Asphalt concrete is a composite material commonly used to surface roads, parking lots, airports, and the core of embankment dams. Asphalt mixtures have been used in pavement construction since the beginning of the twentieth century. It consists of mineral aggregate bound together with bitumen, laid in layers, and compacted.
A parking lot or car park, also known as a car lot, is a cleared area intended for parking vehicles. The term usually refers to an area dedicated only for parking, with a durable or semi-durable surface. In most jurisdictions where cars are the dominant mode of transportation, parking lots are a major feature of cities and suburban areas. Shopping malls, sports stadiums, and other similar venues often have immense parking lots.
Permeable paving surfaces are made of either a porous material that enables stormwater to flow through it or nonporous blocks spaced so that water can flow between the gaps. Permeable paving can also include a variety of surfacing techniques for roads, parking lots, and pedestrian walkways. Permeable pavement surfaces may be composed of; pervious concrete, porous asphalt, paving stones, or interlocking pavers. Unlike traditional impervious paving materials such as concrete and asphalt, permeable paving systems allow stormwater to percolate and infiltrate through the pavement and into the aggregate layers and/or soil below. In addition to reducing surface runoff, permeable paving systems can trap suspended solids, thereby filtering pollutants from stormwater.
The Green Belt Movement (GBM) is an indigenous grassroots organization in Kenya that empowers women through the planting of trees. It is one of the most effective and well-known grassroots organisations addressing the problem of global deforestation. Professor Wangari Maathai established the organization in 1977 under the auspices of the National Council of Women of Kenya (NCWK). GBM's successes in forest conservation, education, and women's economic empowerment have gained the organisation worldwide acclaim. It is also noted for its advocacy of human rights, democratisation of access to public lands, and environmental justice issues such as the role of women's traditional ecological knowledge in addressing environmental degradation and desertification.
Mattawoman Creek is a 30.0-mile-long (48.3 km) coastal-plain tributary to the tidal Potomac River with a mouth at Indian Head, Maryland, 20 miles (32 km) downstream of Washington, D.C. It comprises a 23-mile (37 km) river flowing through Prince George's and Charles counties and a 7-mile (11 km) tidal-freshwater estuary in Charles County. About three-fourths of its 94-square-mile (240 km2) watershed lies in Charles County, with the remainder in Prince George's County immediately to the north.
Rain gardens, also called bioretention facilities, are one of a variety of practices designed to increase rain runoff reabsorption by the soil. They can also be used to treat polluted stormwater runoff. Rain gardens are designed landscape sites that reduce the flow rate, total quantity, and pollutant load of runoff from impervious urban areas like roofs, driveways, walkways, parking lots, and compacted lawn areas. Rain gardens rely on plants and natural or engineered soil medium to retain stormwater and increase the lag time of infiltration, while remediating and filtering pollutants carried by urban runoff. Rain gardens provide a method to reuse and optimize any rain that falls, reducing or avoiding the need for additional irrigation. A benefit of planting rain gardens is the consequential decrease in ambient air and water temperature, a mitigation that is especially effective in urban areas containing an abundance of impervious surfaces that absorb heat in a phenomenon known as the heat-island effect.
An urban forest is a forest, or a collection of trees, that grow within a city, town or a suburb. In a wider sense, it may include any kind of woody plant vegetation growing in and around human settlements. As opposed to a forest park, whose ecosystems are also inherited from wilderness leftovers, urban forests often lack amenities like public bathrooms, paved paths, or sometimes clear borders which are distinct features of parks. Care and management of urban forests is called urban forestry. Urban forests can be privately and publicly owned. Some municipal forests may be located outside of the town or city to which they belong.
Friends of the Don East (FODE) is a non-governmental organization based in Toronto, Ontario, Canada. They are an environmental group whose goal is to preserve and protect natural areas in the Don River watershed.
Sustainable drainage systems are a collection of water management practices that aim to align modern drainage systems with natural water processes and are part of a larger green infrastructure strategy. SuDS efforts make urban drainage systems more compatible with components of the natural water cycle such as storm surge overflows, soil percolation, and bio-filtration. These efforts hope to mitigate the effect human development has had or may have on the natural water cycle, particularly surface runoff and water pollution trends.
TreePeople is an educational and training environmental advocacy organization based in Los Angeles, California. The TreePeople organization advocates and works to support sustainable urban ecosystems in the Greater Los Angeles area through education, volunteer community-based action, and advocacy.
Best management practices (BMPs) is a term used in the United States and Canada to describe a type of water pollution control. Historically the term has referred to auxiliary pollution controls in the fields of industrial wastewater control and municipal sewage control, while in stormwater management and wetland management, BMPs may refer to a principal control or treatment technique as well.
White Oak Bayou is a slow-moving river in Houston, Texas. A major tributary of the city's principal waterway, Buffalo Bayou, White Oak originates near the intersection of Texas State Highway 6 and U.S. Highway 290 and meanders southeast for 25 miles (40 km) until it joins Buffalo Bayou in Downtown. The river serves as a greenway which connects Downtown to the Houston Heights, Oak Forest, Garden Oaks, and Inwood Forest.
Green infrastructure or blue-green infrastructure refers to a network that provides the “ingredients” for solving urban and climatic challenges by building with nature. The main components of this approach include stormwater management, climate adaptation, the reduction of heat stress, increasing biodiversity, food production, better air quality, sustainable energy production, clean water, and healthy soils, as well as more anthropocentric functions, such as increased quality of life through recreation and the provision of shade and shelter in and around towns and cities. Green infrastructure also serves to provide an ecological framework for social, economic, and environmental health of the surroundings. More recently scholars and activists have also called for green infrastructure that promotes social inclusion and equity rather than reinforcing pre-existing structures of unequal access to nature-based services.
Clean Water Services is the water resources management utility for more than 600,000 residents in urban Washington County, Oregon and small portions of Multnomah County, Oregon and Clackamas County, Oregon, in the United States. Clean Water Services operates four wastewater treatment facilities, constructs and maintains flood management and water quality projects, and manages flow into the Tualatin River to improve water quality and protect fish habitat. They are headquartered in Hillsboro.
Tholkappia Poonga or Adyar Eco Park is an ecological park set up by the Government of Tamil Nadu in the Adyar estuary area of Chennai, India. According to the government, the project, conceived based on the master plan for the restoration of the vegetation of the freshwater ecosystems of the Coromandel Coast, especially the fragile ecosystem of the Adyar estuary and creek, was expected to cost around ₹ 1,000 million which will include the beautification of 358 acres of land. The park's ecosystem consists of tropical dense evergreen forest, predominantly comprising trees and shrubs that have thick dark green foliage throughout the year, with over 160 woody species, and comprises six vegetative elements such as trees, shrubs, lianas, epiphytes, herbs and tuberous species. The park was opened to public by Chief Minister M. Karunanidhi on 22 January 2011 and named after the renowned Tamil scholar Tholkappiar. About 65 percent of the park is covered by water and artefacts and signages. In the first 2 months of its inauguration, nearly 4,000 children from several schools in the city and the nearby Kancheepuram and Tiruvallur districts have visited the park to learn about wetland conservation, eco-restoration and water management. While the first phase of the ecopark covered about 4.16 acres of CRZ-III area, the entire area covered under the second phase falls under this category.
Urban runoff is surface runoff of rainwater, landscape irrigation, and car washing created by urbanization. Impervious surfaces are constructed during land development. During rain, storms, and other precipitation events, these surfaces, along with rooftops, carry polluted stormwater to storm drains, instead of allowing the water to percolate through soil. This causes lowering of the water table and flooding since the amount of water that remains on the surface is greater. Most municipal storm sewer systems discharge untreated stormwater to streams, rivers, and bays. This excess water can also make its way into people's properties through basement backups and seepage through building wall and floors.
The Philadelphia Water Department is the public water utility for the City of Philadelphia. PWD provides integrated potable water, wastewater, and stormwater services for Philadelphia and some communities in Bucks, Delaware and Montgomery counties. PWD is a municipal agency of the City of Philadelphia, and is seated in rented space at the Jefferson Tower in the Market East area of Center City, Philadelphia.
Road ecology is the study of the ecological effects of roads and highways. These effects may include local effects, such as on noise, water pollution, habitat destruction/disturbance and local air quality; and the wider environmental effects of transport such as habitat fragmentation, ecosystem degradation, and climate change from vehicle emissions.