The importance of implementing green infrastructure (GI) for flood protection is supported by multiple substantial cross-sectional analyses. Yet, limited longitudinal research has been conducted which addresses how to maintain and improve the configuration of GI in order to minimize the cost of losses resulting from flooding. Structural damage from devastating storm events has repeatedly imposed substantial financial burdens on local governments in coastal regions. This study longitudinally examines the impacts of changes in GI patterns on flood damage cost in coastal Texas areas. Major flood events in the 36 Texan coastal watershed counties along the Gulf of Mexico were monitored from 2000 to 2017. Along with non-spatially weighted panel data models, we developed an advanced statistical model controlling for spatially correlated errors in flood loss and predicting flood loss with a set of time-series socioeconomic and environmental control variables. The results of the spatial panel data model reveal that long-term maintenance of larger, more irregular, more dispersed, less fragmented, and less connected patterns of GI will help to reduce county-level flood damage costs per capita over time. Most importantly, protecting larger patches within a closer proximity was found to be of the utmost importance for retaining the flood regulation services provided by GI. These findings suggest that planners and natural resource managers should enhance supportive land use policies to preserve existing GI and strategically locate new implementations in order to achieve long-term flood protection.

多项实质性横断面分析证明了实施绿色基础设施（GI）对于防洪的重要性。然而，针对如何维护和改进 GI 的配置以最大程度地减少洪水造成的损失成本的纵向研究却很有限。毁灭性风暴事件造成的结构性破坏一再给沿海地区地方政府带来沉重的财政负担。本研究纵向研究了 GI 模式的变化对德克萨斯州沿海地区洪水损失成本的影响。2000 年至 2017 年，监测了墨西哥湾沿岸 36 个德克萨斯州沿海流域县的主要洪水事件。除了非空间加权面板数据模型外，我们还开发了一种先进的统计模型，控制洪水损失的空间相关误差并预测洪水损失具有一组时间序列的社会经济和环境控制变量。空间面板数据模型的结果表明，长期维持更大、更不规则、更分散、更少碎片和更少连接的地理地理信息模式将有助于随着时间的推移降低县级人均洪水损失成本。最重要的是，保护较近的较大斑块对于保留 GI 提供的洪水调节服务至关重要。这些研究结果表明，规划者和自然资源管理者应加强支持性土地利用政策，以保护现有的地理标志，并战略性地寻找新的实施方案，以实现长期防洪。