Sign up for E-Alerts
Enter your email to receive Riverkeeper E-Alerts
Sprawl is haphazard, auto-oriented development that spreads outside of existing downtown centers while attending devastating impacts on our environment.
Impacts of sprawl-style development:
Launched in 2005, Riverkeeper’s Smart Growth Campaign began with an investigation of the many negative impacts of unchecked development in the East-of-Hudson Watershed.
What we found in NYC Watershed communities:
Sprawling development is destroying our watershed communities and polluting our critical drinking water supplies. Sprawl’s greatest threat to water quality is the attendant increase in impervious surfaces, primarily pavement.
To protect water quality and watershed communities, Riverkeeper actively participates in the environmental review process when developments are proposed in the watershed. We work hard to stop the most egregious project from being built and ensure that the environmental impacts of those are built are minimized by advocating for reduced project size and use of progressive building technologies and practices.