Water resource protection can be achieved by the opportune placement of active and passive recreational areas adjacent to preserved riparian corridors. This placement of easements for utilities combines conservation and recreation and reduces impervious development adjacent to sensitive lands. Required stormwater detention basins for quantity and quality control may be designed, landscaped, and positioned to aesthetically enhance these greenways. Efficient residential and commercial site planning, emphasizing consolidation, efficiency and reduction of land consumption, can create numerous small preserves on the neighborhood level. The total assembly of these neighborhood parks and local natural resource protection areas serve to protect habitats for wildlife and people throughout entire watersheds.
Greenways are conduits for both people and natural resources.
They restore fragmentation and diversity in natural spaces as well as reconnecting communities. Greenways may be public or privately owned lands that are set aside from development because the lands that they comprise have natural values highly regarded by society. Preservation of those values enhances the quality of life for those citizens who now or in the future will live close to greenways. Greenways areas tend to be linear land and water formations because more easily developed lands are more uniform in nature, drier, or are generally more accessible to development. Kent County will emphasize greenway linkages between public and private open spaces throughout the County.