Tennessee RiverLine Planning & Design Standards

From the beginning, ecology informs planning and design guidelines to help protect, enhance, and connect all communities of life along 652 miles of the Tennessee River.

Encompassing 1.2 million acres of outdoor recreation along the 652-mile Tennessee River, the Tennessee RiverLine reframes the river and its surrounding land and communities as a connected river blueway amenity that celebrates the beauty, diversity, and history of the Tennessee River Valley and the many communities who call it home. To empower riverfront communities and land managers to bring this vision to life while maintaining their unique identities, the partnership behind the initiative sought to create a set of accessible and consistent Planning & Design Standards. A key member of an interdisciplinary team led by SCAPE, Biohabitats contributed ecological planning and design strategies to support resilience along the river corridor, and long-term health of the unique ecosystems found there.

Biohabitats began by analyzing the ecological conditions of the river corridor and the broader watershed, which hosts some of the most biodiverse ecosystems in the US. This included a review of existing studies, a landscape ecology geospatial analysis, the identification of prototypical ecological conditions, and a summary of relevant considerations for resilient and widely applicable ecological planning and design standards. Biohabitats’ findings were incorporated into an Existing Conditions Report which offered insights into the Tennessee River Valley’s historic roots, cultural significance, ecological dynamics, land and water management strategies, recreational opportunities, patterns of access, demographic trends, and economic potential.

Informed by this report, the team developed Planning & Design Standards to help communities and land stewards along the river corridor enhance local quality of life through infrastructure investment aligned with the Tennessee RiverLine vision and principles. Biohabitats led the development of riparian corridor and landscape ecology strategies/standards, which included detailed design recommendations for ecological restoration and best practices for integrating other recommended amenities with ecological preservation or uplift. Biohabitats also provided high level review of landscape and site design elements and water access strategies developed by the consultant team.

TAGS

• Analysis+Planning
• Design
• Climate Adaptation + Resilience
• Conservation
• Ecological Restoration
• Resilient Water Systems