Devens has launched a new self-guided virtual tour highlighting nature-based solutions across the community. The online tour features 16 sites that show how Devens is using natural systems to manage stormwater, reduce heat, support biodiversity, store carbon, and make redevelopment more resilient.
The tour builds on the Devens Enterprise Commission’s in-person nature-based solutions tours, which began as a way to help municipal staff, boards, committees, students, developers, and property owners see these approaches in action. Since 2023, DEC has led 14 tours for more than 300 participants. The virtual version makes those same examples available to anyone, from anywhere.
As Neil likes to say, “Seeing is believing!”. That idea is central to the tour. Nature-based solutions can sound technical, but the examples in Devens make them easier to understand. The tour includes stream daylighting, restored riparian corridors, green roofs, biofiltration areas, reinforced turf, rainwater harvesting, porous pavement, pollinator meadows, pocket forests, and other low-impact development strategies.
The tour also reflects the broader work guided by the Devens Forward Climate Action Plan. Devens Forward focuses on reducing greenhouse gas emissions, preparing for climate impacts, and connecting climate action to daily life, land use, infrastructure, natural resources, public health, and economic development. Nature-based solutions support many of those goals at once. They help manage heavier rain, reduce localized flooding, cool developed areas, restore habitat, and improve the places where people live, work, learn, and visit.
In collaboration with their redevelopment partners at MassDevelopment and the Devens Eco-Efficiency Center, the DEC’s work has also shown that nature-based solutions do not happen through design alone. They require education and collaboration among public agencies, developers, property owners, educators, and community partners. The virtual tour helps extend that work by making Devens’ examples easier to access and share.
The tour is also useful for students and educators. Devens has hosted academic tours focused on sustainability and resilience, giving students a chance to see how planning decisions intersect with climate solutions.
Since the redevelopment of the former Fort Devens began in the 1990s, Devens has combined economic development with open space protection, ecosystem restoration, and sustainable infrastructure. Today, the community includes more than 100 businesses and organizations, more than 9,000 employees, and over 1,800 acres of protected open space.
The new virtual tour brings that work together in one place. Explore the Devens Nature-based Solutions Virtual Tour to see how green infrastructure and resilient design are being used across the community, and how these approaches can inform projects in Devens and beyond.
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