Wu, J.; Kauhanen, P.; Mckee, L. 2015. GreenPlan-IT Toolkit Demonstration Report. SFEI Contribution No. 958. San Francisco Estuary Institute: Richmond, CA.

GreenPlan-IT is a planning level tool that was developed by SFEP and SFEI with support and oversight from BASMAA to provide Bay Area municipalities with the ability to evaluate multiple management alternatives using green infrastructure for addressing stormwater issues in urban watersheds. GreenPlan-IT combines sound science and engineering principles with GIS analysis and optimization techniques to support the cost-effective selection and placement of Green Infrastructure (GI) at a watershed scale.  Tool outputs can be used to develop quantitatively-derived watershed master plans to guide future GI implementation for improving water quality in the San Francisco Bay and its tributary watersheds.

This report provides an overview of the GreenPlan-IT Tool and demonstrates its utility and power through two pilot studies which is summarized in this report as a case study. The pilot studies with the City of San Mateo and the City of San Jose explored the use of GreenPlan-IT for identifying feasible and optimal GI locations for mitigation of stormwater runoff. They are provided here to give the reader an overview of the user application process from start to finish, including problem formulation, data collection, GIS analysis, establishing a baseline condition, GI representation, and the optimization process. Through the pilot study application process the general steps and recommendations for how GreenPlan-IT can be applied and interpreted are presented.