Urban Studies and Planning Commons^™

Urban Agriculture And Ecosystem Services: A Typology And Toolkit For Planners, Kathleen Doherty

Masters Theses

This thesis makes the connection between urban agriculture and a specific suite of ecosystem services and lays out a typology and toolkit for planners to take advantage of these ecosystem services. The services investigated here are: food production, water management, soil health, biodiversity, climate mitigation, and community development benefits. Research from a variety of fields was aggregated and synthesized to prove that urban agriculture can be beneficial for human as well as environmental health.

A set of urban agriculture typologies was generated to illustrate best practices to maximize a particular set of ecosystem services. The typologies are: production farm, stormwater …

Mitigation And Beautification: Placing Rain Gardens In The Keystone Neighborhood Of Rock Island, Illinois, Rosalie K. Starenko

Independent Research Projects

With new stormwater management regulations, cities are looking for strategies to reduce urban runoff, and rain gardens are one of several strategies that capture runoff and encourage infiltration and evaporation. In doing so, pollution from runoff is mitigated and combined sewer systems experience fewer overflow events. I argue as well that the implementation of rain gardens would act as a movement for neighborhood beautification. This research develops a new methodology for placing rain gardens that: 1) maximizes the aesthetic value of the gardens by favoring high-visibility locations and 2) targets locations that would best benefit from reduced stormwater runoff. The …

Retrofiting Lid Practices Into Existing Neighborhoods: Is It Worth It?, Timothy Wright

Open Access Theses

Low impact development (LID) practices are gaining popularity as a way to manage stormwater close to the source. This reduces infrastructure requirements and helps to maintain hydrologic processes close to predevelopment conditions. Studies have shown LID practices to be effective in reducing runoff and improving water quality. However, little has been done to aid decision makers in selecting the most effective practices for their needs and budgets.

To this end, the L-THIA LID model has been applied. Using readily available data sources, multiple scenarios can quickly be examined, and then analyzed to determine the cost of implementation and the approximate …

Local Surface Water Policy Under Conditions Of Climate Change, Elizabeth Brabec, Elisabeth Hamin, Chingwen Cheng

Elizabeth Brabec

Climate change means two things for local stormwater managers – that storm events will become more severe, and rainfall will, in many instances, become more erratic, causing enhanced periods of drought and flood. Two approaches are needed to deal with the eventualities: mitigation and adaptation.

While urbanization increases stormwater runoff and decreases the lag time of stormwater discharge, there is also a resulting lack of infiltration and reduction in evapotranspiration (Brunke and Gonser 1997). Stormwater detention, retention and infiltration have attempted to compensate, resulting in the concentrated point location infiltration of stormwater, which replenishes groundwater and baseflow. Equally important to …

Agenda: Best Practices For Community And Environmental Protection, University Of Colorado Boulder. Natural Resources Law Center. Intermountain Oil And Gas Bmp Project, Colorado. Oil And Gas Conservation Commission

Best Practices for Community and Environmental Protection (October 14)

The first Intermountain BMP Project workshop, sponsored by the Natural Resources Law Center and the Colorado Oil and Gas Conservation Commission, was held in Rifle, Colorado on October 14, 2009 at the Garfield County Fairground for over 170 participants.

Speakers from Federal, state and local governments, the community, industry and environmental consultants, and conservation groups focused presentations and discussion on a greater understanding of what Best Management Practices (BMPs) are appropriate to the western slope of Colorado and how they are integrated into developments.

Slides: Innovative Best Practices For The Western Slope: Stormwater Management Solutions And Philosophy For The Oil And Gas Industry, Kyle N. Schildt

Best Practices for Community and Environmental Protection (October 14)

Presenter: Kyle N. Schildt, P.E., LT Environmental, Inc.

12 slides