Water Quality Archives - Delta Institute

Innovative Municipal Green Infrastructure ESG Financing

Delta Institute is piloting an innovative financing and service delivery approach to support small-to-mid-sized Great Lakes municipalities to implement GI at scale—with the opportunity to transform GI financing in our home region.

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Restoring The Duck Creek Tributary In Northwest Indiana

Delta Institute is restoring a key waterway in Hobart, Indiana, that flows throughout the entire watershed and ultimately into Lake Michigan. Currently the waterway, the Duck Creek Tributary, overflows with pollution, sediment, and toxins—impacting the water quality downstream for many communities, including multiple that are designated Environmental Justice (EJ) communities.

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Protecting Water Quality on Chicago’s Southeast Side via Stormwater Wetlands at the IIPD

Delta Institute is working with our long-term partner, the Illinois International Port District to assess and evaluate the placement and creation of two new wetlands that will capture stormwater on IIPD's land--keeping pollutants from entering the Calumet River and traveling through dozens of downstream communities.

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Expanding and Stewarding Regional Forest Canopy via a Tree Planting Consortium in Northwest Indiana

Delta Institute (Delta) is working with municipal, business, and community partners in Lake County, Indiana to expand regional forest canopy acreage via an innovative multi-community approach to comprehensive canopy mapping; forest planning, installing 2,240+ trees, and expanding maintenance and capacity building. These efforts will be achieved via a collaborative tree planting consortium structure with foundational inclusive community engagement throughout the entire process.

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Overcoming Barriers to Municipal Green Infrastructure Implementation

Delta Institute (Delta) is examining the barriers preventing Green Infrastructure from being installed across the Great Lakes at the scale needed to address climate change. Delta’s research will inform the development of potential support services that will help municipalities overcome these barriers and improve local water quality, reduce flooding, and improve quality-of-life for their residents.

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Proactive Municipal Climate Planning: Delta Institute and the Resilience Innovation Hub

Delta Institute (Delta) joined the Resilience Innovation Hub, focused on increasing community adaptability while lowering insurance premiums. We are undertaking activities focused on understanding the barriers to implementing resilience activities at the local and regional scale while creating innovative solutions to assist communities to implement projects and initiatives to mitigate and adapt to the impacts of climate change.

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Institutionalizing Soil Health Land Valuation in Michigan

Delta engaged landowners, land managers, and farmers to implement conservation practices in Southeastern Michigan, thus improving environmental outcomes, while exploring soil health as a core component of the land valuation and appraisal process of Michigan's working lands.

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Catalyzing Private Sector Investment on Chicago’s Southeast Side for Sustainable Revitalization

Delta Institute is working with our long-term partner, the Illinois International Port District to assess and evaluate the placement and creation of two new wetlands that will capture stormwater on IIPD's land--keeping pollutants from entering the Calumet River and traveling through dozens of downstream communities.

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Pay for Performance Agricultural Conservation in the Kalamazoo River Watershed (MI)

Delta Institute (Delta) created a market and performance-based agricultural incentive program to reduce phosphorus loading in the Kalamazoo River Watershed associated with agricultural sources. Participating farmers entered bids to achieve phosphorus loading reductions at the lowest cost by implementing conservation practices. Farmers whose bids are accepted are paid to achieve those reductions.

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Stormwater Tree Planting on the Hart Montague Trail in Oceana County, Michigan

Stormwater runoff from parking lots, roadways, buildings, and other impervious surfaces carries oils, grease, pesticides, sediment, and excess nutrients such as phosphorous and nitrogen into groundwater and nearby natural bodies of water--including to Lake Michigan through watershed tributaries. Delta Institute and our partners planted more than 700 trees in Oceana County, Michigan along the Hart Montague Trail, and on roadways within five adjacent communities.

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Creating a Green Infrastructure Plan for Gary, Indiana

Delta Institute's Gary Green Infrastructure Plan was a two-year project focused on assisting the City of Gary with planning and implementing Green Infrastructure designs, identifying 61 Priority Projects to install 26 acres of rain gardens, permeable pavements, street planters, and other GI designs.

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Pay-for-Performance Agricultural Conservation in the Rabbit River Watershed (MI)

Delta Institute (Delta) created a performance-based program for implementing agricultural best management practices to address sediment loading associated with agricultural sources, such as cropland erosion, livestock access, and road/bridge crossings that impacts habitat and water quality in the Rabbit River. Performance-based programs are a targeted approach to investing in conservation when traditional funding is limited. Instead of paying for specific farm practices, this project directs payments that are based on the net environmental improvements resulting from a comprehensive set of practices.

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Collaborating with the Illinois International Port District for Economic Growth and Infrastructure Expansion

Delta Institute is working with our long-term partner, the Illinois International Port District to implement numerous activities and achieve goals as laid out in the Port's 2030 Master Plan.

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Reducing phosphorus runoff in Green Lake, WI

In 2016 Delta assisted the Green Lake Association (GLA) for Green Lake, Wisconsin, in developing an effective long-term approach to reducing phosphorus loading into the Green Lake watershed by leveraging existing research and tools, with a goal of demonstrable water quality improvement, watershed health, and sediment/nutrient reduction.

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Accelerating Outcome-Based Ag Conservation in Saginaw Bay

The Saginaw Bay Watershed Conservation Partnership, led by TNC with support from Delta and other partners, developed and implemented a new strategy to address the primary and secondary resource concerns in the region, particularly water quality degradation and inadequate fish and wildlife habitat.

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Pay for Performance: A Market-Based Approach to Conservation

Delta Institute collaborated with Winrock International and Sand County Foundation to create an innovative and comprehensive "How To Guide" for a new concept called "Pay for Performance," a market-based incentive to pay farmers for documented improvements to water- and soil- quality as a result of conservation-focused agricultural practices.

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Publications

Green Infrastructure Designs: Best Management Practices for Replicability

Incorporating Soil Conservation Practices into Farmland Appraisal in SE Michigan

Conservation in Illinois: Hotspot Analysis and Implications for Program Design

5-10 Year Forest Stewardship Plan for Oceana County (MI)

Land Acquisition Strategy: Michigan City

Regenerative Agriculture Factsheet for Public Agencies

City of Gary Green Infrastructure Plan

Pay for Performance “How To Guide”

Ecosystem Impacts of Electronic Waste in the Ohio Lake Erie Basin

Projects

Innovative Municipal Green Infrastructure ESG Financing

Restoring The Duck Creek Tributary In Northwest Indiana

Protecting Water Quality on Chicago’s Southeast Side via Stormwater Wetlands at the IIPD

Expanding and Stewarding Regional Forest Canopy via a Tree Planting Consortium in Northwest Indiana

Overcoming Barriers to Municipal Green Infrastructure Implementation

Proactive Municipal Climate Planning: Delta Institute and the Resilience Innovation Hub

Institutionalizing Soil Health Land Valuation in Michigan

Catalyzing Private Sector Investment on Chicago’s Southeast Side for Sustainable Revitalization

Pay for Performance Agricultural Conservation in the Kalamazoo River Watershed (MI)

Stormwater Tree Planting on the Hart Montague Trail in Oceana County, Michigan

Creating a Green Infrastructure Plan for Gary, Indiana

Pay-for-Performance Agricultural Conservation in the Rabbit River Watershed (MI)

Collaborating with the Illinois International Port District for Economic Growth and Infrastructure Expansion

Reducing phosphorus runoff in Green Lake, WI

Accelerating Outcome-Based Ag Conservation in Saginaw Bay

Pay for Performance: A Market-Based Approach to Conservation

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