The coral communities in Culebra were stressed by recognized erosion from an unpaved parking lot and road that had increased the volume of post-rainstorm runoff carrying pollutants. Community members managed to slow the flow of rainwater through erosion and sedimentation control, reforestation and habitat restoration through dune restoration, restoration of the line permanent vegetation, and delineation of vehicular and pedestrian access.

In 2001, downtown Houston, Texas, faced an historic 1,000-year flood as a result of Tropical Storm Allison, shutting down the 700-acre Texas Medical Center Complex. While rebuilding the Center to withstand future floods, Texas Medical Center implemented a stormwater management plan that increases green space and improves water absorption through advanced landscaping techniques and permeable paving systems.

Arden Park is along Minnehaha Creek, an impaired waterway that is a tributary to the Mississippi River. This park is in a highly developed suburb just south of Minneapolis (Edina). This project improved the park and restored a section of the creek, improving habitat, water quality, and recreation opportunities. 

Camden County, New Jersey frequently experiences combined sewer flooding during intense rain events. Camden SMART Initiative, a partnership of local government, state environmental agency, local universities and local nonprofits, promotes a network of green infrastructure programs and projects throughout the county. Projects like urban greening, rain gardens and stream daylighting were implemented. 

Planning with extreme weather thresholds catalyzes a $400,000 green infrastructure investment in a historically underserved neighborhood in Las Cruces, New Mexico. City staff partnered with NOAA and nonprofit organizations for a local resilience project that includes a demonstration rainwater harvesting facility and a green infrastructure assessment of the neighborhood.

Due to extreme flooding events and excessive nitrogen levels in the Cedar River Watershed, the City of Cedar Rapids led the Middle Cedar Partnership Project to reduce nutrient runoff and improve soil health. The partnership collaborated with local farmers, landowners, and conservation organizations to implement strategies to reduce nutrient runoff, mitigate flood risk, and improve soil health.

In the mid-1990s, the University of Notre Dame in South Bend, Indiana, was set to begin development on the Warren Golf Course. The University initially designed the course to have Juday Creek, a historic waterway with declining ecological health, run through it. To protect the creek, community groups worked with Notre Dame researchers to restore it.

County of Barnstable, Massachusetts encourages municipalities to take actions that lower flood risks, which can reduce flood insurance premiums by earning credits through the Community Rating System (CRS). In one project, 26 mosquito-control workers cleaned debris out of the 1,500 miles of ditches, pipers, and other conduits that channeled stormwater away from buildings and roads.

The District of Columbia Water and Sewer Authority (DC Water), in an effort to reduce combined sewer overflows (CSOs), is implementing green stormwater infrastructure projects to reduce runoff. These projects include rain barrels, grassed swales, cisterns infiltration trenches, permeable pavements, increased tree cover, and rooftop greening. 

Clear Lake City, TX has a history of intense flooding from hurricanes and other storm events. Exploration Green is a project to transform a former 200-acre golf course into a public park and flood-control area. The park will have 5 detention basins to store floodwater during storm events. 

The Nature Conservancy constructed two demonstration living shorelines projects in the Fowl River in Theodore, Alabama. These living shorelines were constructed on private properties with failing bulkheads and erosion problems. This project retrofitted the existing bulkheads with tiered gabion baskets filled with native marsh plants and dredged material.   

The City of Gary initiated the “Vacant to Vibrant” project in 2014, which aimed to mitigate flooding due to aging sewer system. The project completed the construction of three sites in the Aetna neighborhood by 2016, converting 0.37 acres of vacant land into green infrastructure featuring bat houses, rain gardens, and native plantings.

Tuscon, Arizona faced stormwater management problems, with increased flooding and runoff, and degraded water quality. To address these issues and improve the urban tree canopy and recycle rainwater for irrigation, the city developed the Green Streets Active Practice Guidelines. This program requires integrating green infrastructure into all publicly funded roadway projects. 

As Milwaukee’s population grew, it faced increased stormwater flooding and sewer system overflows. In 2001, the Conservation Fund and the Milwaukee Metropolitan Sewerage District (MMSD) launched a flood management program called Greenseams. The program protects wetlands and other lands containing water-absorbing soils by purchasing land and conservation easements from willing landowners. 

The Walnut Gulch watershed in southeastern Arizona has experienced shrub encroachment that caused erosion and reduced infiltration on grasslands. Researchers at the University of Arizona and at the Agricultural Resource Service conducted an experiment to investigate the effectiveness of herbicide treatments in reducing woody species abundance and their impact to vegetation, runoff, and soil loss.

Alachua County, Florida is facing increasing climate threats from flooding, storms, and droughts. The county government has worked to implement green infrastructure projects and policies to increase Alachua County’s resilience. The county has involved developers, landscapers, and community members to implement green stormwater projects on both public and private lands.  

Historical military-base landscape in Kansas introduced non-native ornamental shrubs and flowers that provide limited benefits to native pollinators and protection against flooding. In response to this, the USFWS partnered with McConnell Air Force Base (AFB) to plant native species and construct a nature-based stormwater management system.

The suburban city of Mount Rainer, Maryland aimed to restore the water quality Anacostia River, which was polluted by polluted stormwater runoff from urban and agricultural lands. The city developed Urban Green Infrastructure Plan to encourage community members to install nature-based stormwater control practices.

Clear Lake City, Texas is located south of Houston and experiences frequent flooding from hurricanes and urban runoff. After conducting an impact study on how to reduce flooding, the Clear Lake City Water Authority (CLCWA) worked to purchase a 200-acre golf course to transform it into a park and stormwater retention area. 

The City of Ann Arbor recognized stormwater runoff as a growing threat to the quality of their water supply in the Huron River. To protect the city’s drinking water and reduce downstream impact of the pollution, they designed two financial incentives.