This course is designed to provide stormwater managers, professionals, and local leaders and their staff with an overview of the components necessary to implement a comprehensive asset management program. Asset management is maintaining a desired level of service at the lowest life cycle cost. In simple terms, it provides a means of determining the best way to spend your limited dollars to achieve the maximum impact.

Despite strong regional and local goals to expand urban forests within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed, implementation lags behind intentions. A major impediment to increasing urban tree canopy in many communities is a lack of adequate funding to plan and carry out tree planting and maintenance programs. This course provides municipal elected officials, their staff, and anyone involved in promoting the development and maintenance of thriving community forests with guidance on how to design an effective funding program to implement community forestry goals in the Chesapeake Bay Watershed.

The Earth’s climate is changing. Impacts - including higher temperatures, warming water temperatures, rising sea levels, and longer periods of extreme weather - are already being felt in the Chesapeake Bay watershed and are expected to worsen. The good news is there are actions we can all take to help mitigate and adapt to these impacts. Landscape professionals, in particular, have a unique opportunity to address the effects of our changing climate.

As communities across the Chesapeake Bay Watershed face challenges with regulatory compliance, growth, flooding, and maintaining existing infrastructure, significant capital investments in stormwater infrastructure will be required. Green infrastructure is a preferred stormwater best management practice that can achieve multiple community benefits. This course outlines strategies for integrating green infrastructure into capital projects such as roads, utilities, parks, and schools.