Abstract
Urban areas in coastal communities have adopted “green infrastructure” plans and strategies to increase community resiliency, and conserve and protect their natural resources such as greenways, wetlands, and open spaces. This community-based research identified: 1) nine (9) cities that utilized green infrastructure planning in the Mississippi-Alabama coastal region; 2) best practices among those cities; 3) landscape patterns to be protected; and 4) developed a partnership plan to involve governmental leaders as engaged learners. This research used both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine green infrastructure planning practices and outcomes in the Mississippi-Alabama coastal region. Faculty and student researchers engaged and assessed the coastal cities in green infrastructure planning strategies using a planning quality scorecard of key indicators, an online survey, interviews and landscape spatial pattern analysis. A regional partnership plan encouraged municipalities to actively interact with each other on a local level to transfer their shared knowledge to other coastal communities. Research findings, community engagement methods and impacts, student successes, and lessons learned are shared.
