Green Infrastructure: Linking Landscapes and Communities

Green Infrastructure is a practical and inspiring guide to rethinking how we plan, protect, and manage the landscapes around us. With detailed examples from across the country, this book introduces a forward-looking approach to land conservation—one that connects natural systems across scales, from individual parcels to entire regions, and integrates ecological health with human needs.

Written by leading experts in planning, design, and conservation, this wide-ranging resource helps readers understand how to evaluate the full range of potential uses for a landscape—recreation, biodiversity, flood mitigation, habitat connectivity, or community development—and identify which uses offer the greatest long-term value. The book equips professionals and advocates alike with a toolkit for implementing conservation strategies that serve both people and nature.

From greenway design to regional watershed planning, Green Infrastructure presents real-world strategies and decision-making frameworks that can be tailored to a variety of urban, suburban, and rural settings. It also shows how to build partnerships, navigate policy, and align conservation goals with economic and social priorities.

Clear, accessible, and rich with illustrations, this book empowers planners, landscape architects, and engaged citizens to design landscapes that are resilient, functional, and meaningful—advancing a smarter, more connected vision for land stewardship in the 21st century.

Mark Benedict is the Senior Associate for Strategic Conservation and the Senior Advisor for the Conservation Leadership Network at the Conservation Fund. He has his Ph.D. in botany/plant ecology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.

Ed McMahon is vice president and director of land use planning for The Conservation Fund and co-author of  Balancing Nature and Commerce in Gateway Communities (Island Press 1997).
The Conservation Fund, a national nonprofit organization, acts to protect the nation's legacy of land and water resources in partnership with other organizations, public agencies, foundations, corporations, and individuals. Since its founding in 1985, the Fund has helped its partners safeguard wildlife habitat, working landscapes, community greenspace and historic sites totaling more than 3.4 million acres throughout the nation. Its headquarters are in Arlington, Virginia.