Optimizing an Innovative Green Infrastructure Program Using Asset Management

Over the past decade, municipalities across the country have been more rigorously employing asset management strategies to inventory, value, report, and audit infrastructure. In parallel, green stormwater infrastructure has evolved from demonstration sites to integral infrastructure for management of water quality, becoming a key strategy for regulatory compliance. Communities across the country have faced a number of challenges related to green infrastructure. Ensuring proper and cost-effective maintenance of these assets has been one of the most common challenges. As the number of decentralized installations grows and as these assets age, there is a need to optimize management. Asset management frameworks can be customized to tackle these challenges through long term lifecycle management of the asset. These frameworks provide an efficient and predictable approach that may evolve to integrate additional decentralized infrastructure such as smart city solutions. This paper introduces commonly applied frameworks, applies these frameworks to green stormwater infrastructure and presents a case study about the Clean Water Partnership in Prince George's County, Maryland, where some of the first green infrastructure in the United States was constructed.