Environmental Resiliency –Air, Water & Climate

The development of our regional transportation networks impacts landscape connections and ecosystem functioning. A resilient environment is one that can bounce back from these impacts with the strength necessary to provide “ecosystem services” that support life on earth such as producing soils that grow nutritious food, and trees that clean the air and water.

Source: The Nature Conservancy, New Mexico (2)

The Built Environment

The Mid-Region Metropolitan Planning Organization (MRMPO) looks at where vulnerabilities will be felt the most and provides recommendations for mitigating these impacts. How our built environment expands impacts our future resiliency. Minimizing growth in at-risk locations (i.e., areas susceptible to flooding or forest fires) requires development forms that lead to better transportation outcomes, a smaller regional footprint, and lower levels of water consumed. 

Natural Resources Map IconMRMPO has developed a Natural Resource Inventory online map that collects geospatial layers from multiple databases to assist regional transportation infrastructure planning in being responsive to existing environmental conditions and protecting natural resources. It identifies currently protected lands, watershed basin boundaries, aquifer boundaries, surface waterbodies, critical habitat areas, land cover types, and eco-regions of the Albuquerque Metro Planning Area.

As our understanding of ecological relationships with the built environment advances, planning of our regional transportation networks should integrate additional mitigation and adaptation measures to help safeguard our air, water, soil, and wildlife habitats.

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