Designing for Sustainability and Resiliency: A Tale of Two Towns

Strategic design planning begins with understanding landscape patterns and dynamics as well as the livelihoods and sense of place for local communities. Geospatial Solutions Director Janet Silbernagel brings her expertise to a presentation that touches on the challenges of successful design for sustainability and resilience. In 2018, Janet’s local town in southern Wis. experienced unprecedented flooding. Invited to be part of a consulting team to plan for flood protection, she shares how they integrated landscape ecology with geodesign to strategically locate green infrastructure features within the Black Earth Creek watershed. Sadly, a similar size town in Hawaii that might have anticipated flooding suffered tragic wildfires this year. Were there unsustainable landscape patterns or ecological signals that could have been heeded? What strategies can help build resilience against such unexpected events?