Green infrastructure – natural resources and ecosystems as well as enhanced and engineered assets that reproduce natural functions – is critical for helping municipalities deliver and maintain levels of service for their communities, often at a lower cost than grey infrastructure alternatives. As the Canadian climate changes, protecting and managing green infrastructure is ever more vital, since it is a key tool for municipal adaptation to climate change.

This page outlines the resources available to municipalities to help improve understanding, valuation and management of green infrastructure in the context of climate change. The resources have been developed as part of the Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program (MCIP).

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 Featured case studies, tools and other resources

Case studies and municipal examples

• Natural capital valuation in Saskatoon, SK
• Resiliency in stormwater management infrastructure in Port Burwell, ON
• Improving coastal flood adaptation processes in Surrey, BC
• Groundwater mapping and management in the Rural Municipality of Springfield, MB
• Local governments incorporate ecosystem needs into infrastructure plans in six Canadian communities
• Understanding climate change impacts on the North Saskatchewan River Basin
• Webinar on urban woodland valuation in the City of London, ON and best practices and challenges presented by the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority

Tools, resources and articles

• Green Infrastructure for Climate Adaptation Report: project summary report and online training
• Urban forest benefits detailed in an urban forest management guide
• Best Practices Approaches for Mainstreaming Climate Change into Water Management: Green infrastructure-based approaches
• Summary results and municipal climate adaptation plans from the Adaptation Changemakers project
• Green infrastructure among the metrics showcased in the Green Development Standards toolkit
• Natural assets highlighted throughout the Guide for integrating climate change considerations into municipal asset management
• Reflections from a Canadian asset management tour, a Public Sector Digest article about the management of assets, including natural ones

Defining green infrastructure and natural assets

According to the Natural Assets Initiative (NAI):

Green infrastructure is a broad category that includes natural assets and designed and engineered elements that have been created to mimic natural functions and processes in the service of human interests. Rain gardens and urban parks are examples of enhanced assets, while green roofs and permeable pavement are examples of engineered assets.

Natural assets (also known as natural capital) are a subset of green infrastructure and the stock of natural resources and ecosystems, such as forests or wetlands, that yield a flow of benefits to people.

Incorporating green infrastructure

Although most of the resources featured on this page pertain to natural assets, MCIP has also produced several green infrastructure resources. The Green Infrastructure Foundation worked with six Ontario communities on incorporating green infrastructure into site redevelopment plans; the organization also offers courses to support municipalities in building capacity to assess green infrastructure benefits.

MCIP has funded several green infrastructure projects. One example relating to enhanced assets is the stormwater management project in Port Burwell, ON. In rebuilding its storm sewer network, the municipality installed 100 metres of bioswale, a vegetated stormwater conveyance and filtration channel.

Societal benefits derived from green infrastructure

 

Green infrastructure is increasingly recognized as a vital ally in the fight against climate change, both from a greenhouse gas reduction perspective and, most critically for Canadian municipalities, from an adaptation perspective. Green infrastructure helps municipalities adapt to the impacts of climate change and maintain services for the community such as drinking water provision and stormwater management, often at a lower cost compared to engineered alternatives.

Green infrastructure provides a range of benefits, not all of which are easy to quantify. A comprehensive list of these benefits is included in the Green Infrastructure for Climate Adaptation Report, among them environmental (for example flood resilience and reduced energy consumption), economic (e.g. increases in employment, the lifespan of grey infrastructure and retail sales) and social (such as improved health and educational outcomes).

Understanding and valuing the services natural assets provide

 

The first steps municipalities take in relation to natural assets centre around better understanding what these consist of, what condition they’re in and how climate change might impact them in the future. They also are about recognizing what role natural assets play in delivering services to the municipality and assigning a dollar value to them when possible.

MCIP funded a North Saskatchewan River Basin meta-analysis (and summary), outlining its current climate and hydrology, projected climate changes within the region and expected impacts on aspects such as streamflow and water quality.

Saskatoon, SK undertook a natural capital valuation project, first compiling an inventory of local natural assets and then selecting two areas for detailed valuation. The ecosystem services the two areas provide were identified and assigned a financial value, and results were then extrapolated to the entire inventory. The conservative estimate was that the city’s natural assets deliver $48.2 million per year in total value. In a webinar (minutes 32:55 to 50:23), the City of London, ON outlines how it used accounting metrics to value the city’s urban woodlands, explaining how metrics such as appreciation, depreciation and tangible assets were considered and a cost of asset replacement approach taken.

For Saskatoon and many other municipalities across Canada, one of the main barriers to formally calculating the value of natural assets is the Public Sector Accounting Board’s current prohibition against listing natural infrastructure as a capital asset. This acts as a disincentive and makes it harder for Canadian municipalities to establish consistent standards for financially valuing natural assets. It also makes it harder for a municipality to build a strong business case. Surrey, BC was able to create a strong business case for a coastal resilience project that included the development of new parkland, calculating that the project would yield a cost-benefit ratio of 1:126, providing total avoided damages of $23.5 billion over the lifecycle of the assets.

Protecting and managing natural assets for climate adaptation and other benefits

 

Once natural assets have been listed and mapped, their exposure to climate change impacts understood and their value measured, municipalities are able to integrate them into plans and strategies. Doing so ensures natural assets are protected, managed and able to continue delivering ecosystem services to communities.

The Rural Municipality of Springfield, MB depends wholly on groundwater for its water needs. Concerned about the potential impact of climate change on this vital natural asset, the municipality undertook a mapping exercise to inform a groundwater management plan.

Eight municipalities created climate adaptation plans as part of the MCIP-funded Adaptation Changemakers project, evaluating climate change impacts on natural systems (among others) and creating adaptation solutions to address these risks. Each adaptation plan is available online and summarized in the results document. Among the actions prioritized for protecting biodiversity and enhancing ecosystem functions: optimizing road salt use, enhancing urban forests, naturalizing shorelines and control of invasive species.

Several MCIP resources provide examples of and guidance for management options relating to natural assets. The All One Sky best practices for water management report summarizes green infrastructure-based approaches to address water quality and flooding, among other things. The organization’s urban forest management guide and summary includes a series of adaptation options relating to policy and planning, tree planting, plant care, risk management and engagement. Although intended for an Edmonton-area audience, many are relevant in other geographies.

Green development standards (GDS) can help municipalities manage increased demand on their resources by encouraging environmentally, socially and economically sustainable design. The GDS toolkit for new residential buildings guides municipalities in developing the key components of a GDS, including by providing sample GDS metrics covering green infrastructure such as tree canopy, soils and parks.

Integrating green infrastructure into asset management

 

One specific way municipalities can manage natural assets for climate outcomes is by treating them like any other assets, integrating them into asset management plans and practices.

To help municipalities better understand the benefits of integrating green infrastructure into asset management planning, the Toronto and Region Conservation Authority presented some best practices and challenges during a webinar (minutes 04:49 to 31:58).  

During the MCIP workshop series on the integration of climate change considerations into municipal asset management, the City of Grand Forks, BC, shared details about their novel flood resilience project which involves restoring the ability of the river’s floodplain to convey flood water by offering community land swaps to riverfront residents.

MCIP has supported municipalities in integrating climate considerations into asset management. This resource takes municipal staff on a learning journey starting with a short video and progressing to a detailed guide. The guide lays out a series of clear steps leading up to how to integrate climate change related actions into municipal asset management plans, with natural assets included throughout.

Spotlight on: communities banking on healthy natural assets

 

One set of MCIP resources links to all of the steps detailed above: those produced through a partnership between a group of six communities and NAI to understand how healthy natural assets can help address issues facing municipalities. Assessments revealed that natural assets such as ponds, forests and whole watersheds provide value of up to $400 million and benefit over 200,000 municipal residents.

The municipalities followed an eight-step methodology. This included defining the scope of the natural assets they would include, creating an inventory of natural assets using existing information, assessing their condition, conducting a risk assessment and quantifying the service levels the assets provide for the community. Through this asset management approach, the municipalities then developed operation and management plans based on existing conditions, risks, and desired service level trajectories.

This resource was developed by the Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program (2017-2022). This program was delivered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and funded by the Government of Canada.

Is your municipality updating or developing its service delivery planning? Are you thinking of how to get better value from the infrastructure that services to your communities? Check out this page to learn what climate considerations you should be integrating in your service delivery planning activities and learn about some of the tools you will may to use before you create your plan.

How can your community’s service delivery planning integrate climate resiliency?

Integrating climate considerations into service delivery planning – such as infrastructure master planning and asset management planning - is key to climate resilience. Climate change will have significant impacts on levels of service, risks to service delivery, and costs of service delivery. The decisions made in service delivery planning are important and practical opportunities to improve community resilience. Integrating climate considerations into service delivery planning can help your community:

• Assess and manage risks by determining how climate change will affect services and how strategic decisions about infrastructure investments and operations and maintenance standards can improve climate resilience. For example, assessing the impacts of sea level rise, and weighing the costs and benefits of installing coastal protection infrastructure or rehabilitating a natural shoreline to manage the impacts.
• Set and adapt service levels that consider and accommodate the impacts of climate change. For example, warming in a cold climate community may lead to an increase in the number of freeze-thaw cycles, which may require changes to the road maintenance service levels.
• Manage costs of climate change impacts by anticipating changes in service delivery and proactively managing risk or adapting levels of service at opportune times, like the end of the useful life of an existing asset. For example, using future climate projections rather than historic climate data to specify the replacement of an aging HVAC system in a recreation centre during routine asset renewal.

Many climate impacts lead to higher costs or lower levels of service compared to what your community will have provided citizens in the past. For some communities, climate change will mean different impacts on assets, for example, warmer winter temperatures may reduce the number of freeze and thaw cycles, reducing road maintenance needs, but more freezing rain may be damaging to urban forestry. Regardless of the impact, climate change will require reassessing risks, costs, and levels of service—and the trade-offs among these—for providing different services because the conditions are changing. What this means is municipalities cannot continue to maintain the status quo, as it may be more expensive in the long term and lead to lower resilience. Your community should anticipate that climate change will influence service delivery, and your municipality should plan to evaluate your service delivery planning, day-to-day operations, as well as the maintenance and replacement of infrastructure with climate change in mind.

What are other Canadian communities doing?

After back-to-back years of wildfires in 2017 and 2018, staff in the City of Prince George (British Columbia) are considering the relationship between emergency response and climate change. The wildfires around the City resulted in a significant influx of evacuees from communities around Prince George. This created a strain on a variety of services within the community from housing, to security, to food provision. The City is currently working towards including and preparing for a variety of climate impacts in its Hazard, Risk, and Vulnerability Analysis (HRVA), an emergency planning document required by the Province.

Key learning: Planning for your community’s climate vulnerabilities before they occur will ensure continuity of services.

The City of Selkirk (Manitoba) has become a leader in integrating climate change considerations into asset management planning and their Selkirk Adaptation Strategy. The City has focused on asset management related to stormwater assets, and planning pipe replacement while taking into account future parameters for precipitation and extreme weather. Taking action on this has helped the community to identify priority stormwater pipes for upgrading and the standards to which they need to be upgraded.

Key learning: Considering future climate projections when planning will ensure your community will continue to receive the level of service it has become accustomed to.

How can your municipality include climate considerations in service delivering planning?

Integrate climate change data and considerations into service delivering planning by:

• Using climate scenarios to understand how loads and demands on infrastructure will change over time;
• Monitoring and updating maintenance and repairs schedules to reflect changing conditions;
• Updating levels of service where needed to reflect climate risks, including type, size, and scale of services;
• Evaluating and managing changing risks, including the impact of climate change on asset lifespan;
• Monitoring and updating environmental programs and service delivery plans as additional information becomes available and in response to experienced climate events;
• Identifying and planning for adaptation opportunities across services;
• Determining appropriate timing for capital investments for adaptation, leveraging asset replacement, and renewal as opportunities to adapt infrastructure;
• Identifying the impact of climate change on natural assets and the services that they provide;
• Rehabilitating or protecting natural assets that increase the resilience of service delivery systems; and
• Updating design parameters to take into account changing conditions.

What climate data and service delivery planning tools can you use?

Selecting appropriate tools and data for use in service delivery planning depends on the type of decision you want to inform and the nature of the analysis you conduct. There are many   free tools and resources suitable for qualitative planning or decisions. These resources can help you understand how climate is expected to change in your community, identify how those changes may impact service delivery, and even conduct assessments of vulnerability and risk for various service areas. 

Quantitative planning or decisions, such as selecting specific design parameters for infrastructure, can require more detailed, downscaled, time series data. . Someone with the appropriate climate science expertise should support your municipality in accessing and interpreting this data so that your municipality uses the right data to inform decisions.

Helpful tools by type of planning or decision

This resource was developed by the Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program (2017-2022). This program was delivered by the Federation of Canadian Municipalities and funded by the Government of Canada.

Energy poverty refers to the experience of households or communities that struggle with meeting their home energy needs. Approximately 20 percent of Canadian households in both rural and urban communities face energy poverty, and addressing this challenge requires a clear understanding of the people who experience it and the factors that contribute to it.

The Energy Poverty and Equity Explorer tool, developed by Canadian Urban Sustainability Practitioners (CUSP), offers municipalities access to relevant data so they can better understand energy poverty, and other equity and affordability challenges in their communities. The resource is designed to help municipal staff develop equitable and inclusive clean energy programs to meet residents’ needs.

About the Energy Poverty and Equity Explorer

CUSP developed the Energy Poverty and Equity Explorer to support participants in the Local Energy Access Programs (LEAP) project. The LEAP project, launched under FCM’s Municipalities for Climate Innovation Program’s Transition 2050 initiative, supports CUSP members in using the tool. The project involves 16 municipalities working together to design and deliver clean energy programs. This will accelerate their ability to adopt technologies such as heat pumps, solar energy and electric vehicles. Communities can use these tools to design affordable policies and programs aimed at low-income households.

A large number of Canadian households are struggling with affordability, and home energy costs can be very significant depending on where you live, the type and condition of the home you live in, and how many people live in and earn income in your home. Energy poverty affects nearly 3 million households in Canada, combined with income poverty, 4 million households are struggling economically in one way or another.

– Allison Ashcroft

Gain insights into energy poverty in your community

The Energy Poverty and Equity Explorer is a pan-Canadian, neighbourhood-scale equity and energy poverty mapping tool. It draws from custom Statistics Canada datasets down to the most disaggregated scale available (neighbourhood level) in major centres. It also includes data on geography, income characteristics, housing tenure, and housing types. Use the tool to help your municipality develop energy programs that achieve deep emissions reductions. The tool can also help you better design programs to meet the needs of low-income people who struggle to pay their energy costs.  

Develop affordable clean energy programs

The Energy Poverty and Equity Explorer is available to all Canadian municipalities to help:

• Gain insights into community disparities related to energy costs and burdens
• Learn about your neighbourhoods by layering several data points related to households and housing (household income and demographics, building characteristics and condition)
• Reveal inequities at a granular level (neighbourhood)
• Realize trends influencing energy poverty in Canada
• Design targeted clean energy programs
• Apply community data to climate action planning, policies and programing and other equity and affordability initiatives

Use the tool

Who is this tool for?

This tool will be of particular interest to municipal community energy managers, climate coordinators, environment and sustainability leads along with people working in poverty reduction and social justice.

If you create a new materials using the new tool please advise CUSP so that your work can be profiled on energypoverty.ca and serve as inspiration to other municipal and non-municipal practitioners.

Contact

Allison Ashcroft
Managing Director, Canadian Urban Sustainability Practitioners
allison@cuspnetwork.ca

The LiBRe program is structured around a best practices framework for becoming a municipal leader in brownfield renewal. By providing tailored learning materials and peer learning activities, the program supports participants' progress through the seven steps outlined below, which may be adapted to suit the local context. The steps can be completed one-by-one, or several may be undertaken simultaneously. Program members may also  build on work already accomplished.

To be recognized for achieving each step, members must submit the deliverables listed below.

Download the document.

Download the accessible version. 

Get started on plans to revive abandoned or contaminated properties in your municipality with help from our free guidebook. 

Build your knowledge on:

• The elements needed to successfully create and implement a brownfield strategy
• How to identify priority sites, set realistic goals, engage stakeholders, and select the right incentives for developers
• How brownfield strategies in other municipalities supported objectives for  sustainable development
• Ways to help kick-start clean-up of contaminated properties in your community

Download the document.

Download the accessible version.