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![\"Design](\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/content_full-size__wide\/public\/uploads\/Green_Infrastructure\/Photo%202%20JPEG_0.jpg?itok=a2q6_MCJ "\\"Design")
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\n\tOur first case study takes us to Northfield, Vermont. Northfield is a small town in Washington County situated on the Dog River. In 2011, during Tropical Storm Irene, the area received more than 7 inches of rain and the Dog River flooded. \u00a0The flooding river spilled with violent force throughout Northfield, putting neighborhoods, businesses, and roads underwater. More than 80 homes were damaged. Most of this damage was concentrated in Northfield\u2019s Water Street neighborhood, located next to the Dog River.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\n\tWith leadership from Michele Braun, who was Northfield\u2019s Hazard Mitigation Planner at the time, and funding from the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Vermont Emergency Management (VEM), the town of Northfield bought out 18 damaged homes in the river\u2019s floodplain. A floodplain is an area of land next to a river, where water is expected to flow during a flood. It is a dangerous place to develop. The goal of these property buyouts was to protect families from future flood damage by helping them move out of a hazardous flood-prone area.\u00a0\u00a0 \n\tWhen floodplains can function properly, they have a great capacity for flood storage. Functioning floodplains store and slow excess water that may otherwise end up damaging surrounding communities. Braun coordinated a design plan for the buyout properties that maximizes flood storage potential and creates a dynamic community space for Northfield residents.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tAfter years of collaborative work between The Town of Northfield, Friends of the Winooski, Two Rivers Ottauquechee Regional Planning Commission, water resource engineers at Milone & MacBroom (now SLR), US Fish and Wildlife, the Mad\/Dog Chapter of Trout Unlimited, the Winooski Natural Resources Conservation District, Norwich University, the Northfield Conservation Commission, and residents of the Water Street neighborhood \u2013 Dog River Park was finalized in 2018. \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t \n\tA pollinator garden, walking paths, river access points, and a native riparian buffer make Dog River Park a wonderful place to connect with the community and with nature. \u00a0It balances the functionality of a park with the functionality of a floodplain \u2013 and it is designed to hold enough flood water to decrease potential flood levels throughout the nearby Water Street neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThis past July, Dog River Park\u2019s design was put to the test. The Dog River watershed received more than 5 inches of rain in the July 2023 storms \u2013 not as much as it did during Tropical Storm Irene \u2013 but the Dog River flooded again. Water spread over Dog River Park and flooded basements in the Water Street neighborhood. Because floodwaters were able to fill the restored floodplain in Dog River Park, the severity of the flooding in the Water Street neighborhood was reduced by about six inches. This was confirmed by river engineers Jessica Louisos and Roy Schiff, who were involved in the park\u2019s design, based on a review of hydraulic modeling of similar-sized floods. Six inches may seem minor, but it could determine whether flood waters reach the first floor of a home \u2013 drastically impacting the costs of damages for homeowners. \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tThe park performed as it was designed to.\u00a0\u00a0 \n\t\u201cIt held water for 3 days after the flood,\u201d says Braun. \u201cDogwoods, willows and alders in the park\u2019s riparian buffer caught a ton of debris, lightening the impact on downstream communities.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tLisa Kolb, a resident of the Water Street neighborhood is grateful for the park\u2019s flood storage, and for its value as a community space. She enjoys connecting with neighbors and walking her dog at Dog River Park three times a day.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u201cWe will have flooding,\u201d Kolb explains, \u201cbut we can work to mitigate the impacts in ways that improve the community too.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tDog River Park is an inspiring model of floodplain management that reduces flood impacts and provides an amenity for the community. Implementing projects like Dog River Park in more communities will help keep homes and people safer from flood damage. \u00a0<\/p>\n \n\tInterested in learning more about how your community could implement a flood reduction project? Start a conversation with your Regional Floodplain Manager<\/a> or Regional Planning Commission<\/a>. Reach out to Friends of the Winooski<\/a> to learn more about their Dog River Park model. They are interested in identifying opportunities to implement flood resilience projects like Dog River Park in new locations. In addition, visit VT DEC\u2019s Flood Ready website<\/a> for more learning resources about natural flood protection and floodplain management<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n \n\t\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Slow moving storms brought catastrophic flooding to our region in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":1515,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_eb_attr":"","_price":"","_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_header":"","_tribe_default_ticket_provider":"","_tribe_ticket_capacity":"0","_ticket_start_date":"","_ticket_end_date":"","_tribe_ticket_show_description":"","_tribe_ticket_show_not_going":false,"_tribe_ticket_use_global_stock":"","_tribe_ticket_global_stock_level":"","_global_stock_mode":"","_global_stock_cap":"","_tribe_rsvp_for_event":"","_tribe_ticket_going_count":"","_tribe_ticket_not_going_count":"","_tribe_tickets_list":"[]","_tribe_ticket_has_attendee_info_fields":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-871","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=871"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1192,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/871\/revisions\/1192"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1515"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=871"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=871"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=871"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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![\"Northfield](\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/half-width__wide\/public\/uploads\/Green_Infrastructure\/Photo%201%20JPEG.jpg?itok=DXfusbi6 "\\"Northfield")
![\"Dog](\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/half-width__wide\/public\/uploads\/Green_Infrastructure\/Photo%203%20JPEG.jpg?itok=j0TrhL0I "\\"Dog")
![\"Debris](\"\/\/www.uvm.edu\/seagrant\/sites\/default\/files\/styles\/half-width__wide\/public\/uploads\/Green_Infrastructure\/Photo%206%20JPEG.jpg?itok=VUMc2SfO "\\"Debris")