Water quality in heavily developed areas continues to degrade with each sprawling project. By replacing natural soils with paved surfaces, such as roads, parking lots, and building footprints, the landscape loses its ability to purify stormwater naturally, while at the same time, plants and animals lose essential habitat. A particular health concern for humans is air pollution. By spreading apart the elements of a community and relying on automobiles for transportation, sprawl leads to increased vehicle emissions. Air pollutants, such as the carcinogens emitted by vehicles, have toxic effects on human organ systems and physiological processes and are linked to numerous ailments, including asthma, allergies, and osteoporosis. Our communities want and deserve clean water for drinking, fishing, and swimming; clean air to breath; and natural areas for recreation and aesthetic purposes.

Photo by William Wegner

Key Facts About the Environmental Impacts of Sprawl:

Sprawl is haphazard, auto-oriented development that spreads outside of existing downtown centers while attending devastating impacts on our environment. For example, sprawl:

Increases pavement levels. A one-acre parking lot produces 16 times more stormwater runoff than a one-acre meadow.

Destroys forests. Tree cover saved one city $5.3 million per year on residential energy use, runoff reduction, and air pollution removal.

Increases traffic. Nationwide, air pollution from cars annually results in 120,000 premature deaths and $40-50 billion in health care costs.

To learn more about sprawl's impact on our natural resources, check out our report, Pave It...or Save It? Volume I: The Environmental, Economic, and Social Impacts of Sprawl.

In addition, under "Related Info." at the top right side of this page, you can read a Riverkeeper opinion piece that appeared in the Putnam County Courier's July 7, 2005 edition.