Significant portions of compost are an essential part of many bioretention and other green infrastructure soils. Compost is a beneficial complement to the largely inert aggregate used to provide rapid infiltration in these mixes: It stores significant moisture—reducing peak and total flows, has a high capacity to trap nutrients and contaminants, and boosts the biological… More
Bioretention has been shown to effectively remove heavy metals from stormwater runoff, which makes it a very useful design tool. However, there are two common concerns related to long term use of bioretention for heavy metals removal: (1) When will breakthrough occur, i.e. when will the binding sites be saturated so that dissolved heavy metals… More
Writing Bullet Proof Resistant Soil Specifications By Howard Stenn, Stenn Design Soil specifications with unnecessary, contradictory or unverifiable standards are an invitation for plant and drainage problems, project delays, and ensuing conflicts over responsibility. Problematic provisions often accumulate in office specifications—added for a particular project or not removed when a divergent section is added –and… More
Soil structure (how soil particles are held together to form larger structures within the soil) is recognized as an important property of a healthy soil. Grading, tilling, soil compaction and screening soils during the soil processing and mixing process damages structure. To counteract the loss of structure, specifiers then add to it, utilizing a mined… More
Over the past 20 years compost has become a standard amendment for landscape site soils and topsoil mixes, but specifications are far from standardized. While regional and project-specific conditions require variation in compost quality, there are basic parameters that every compost should meet for use in landscapes. There are also some common provisions that should… More
The City of Toronto has been a pioneer for important public policy initiatives such as one of the first Municipal Soil Volume Standards for street trees, a ground breaking Best Practices Manual for Hardscape Street Tree Planting. All of this was done through a cross departmental collaborative approach, and began with the Queensway project, which… More
Over 20 years ago, the City of Del Mar along the southern California coastline began a citywide process to improve streetscapes with the intention to preserve and enhance the tangible qualities of the community. In 2019, construction began of the downtown streetscape portion, which will bring these concepts to fruition, building up the commercial center of… More
Over the last several years, DeepRoot has written about reusing urban soils as a planting medium. To date, the following have been covered via the DeepRoot blog: Reusing Existing Urban Soil for Planting Urban Soil Assessment and Reuse: Part 1 and Part 2 Search for the “Perfect” Soil Specification The articles above create a basis… More
This is the second of a two-part series about urban soil assessment and reuse. Read part 1 here. While the types of questions one might ask about urban soils are somewhat similar to the questions an agricultural soil scientist might ask about farm soils, the methods to get information is dramatically different. Urban soils are… More
A critical part of any landscape architect’s training is to learn how to understand the site conditions before starting the design. There is likely nothing more important than soil to the success of anything placed on it or planted into it. Urban sites, and thus urban soil, make up a large part of the work… More
Susan Day and her team at Virginia Tech published a paper earlier this year about a soil rehabilitation technique called Soil Profile Rebuilding, or SPR. They were looking for a way to rehabilitate soils damaged by land development in a way that would restore their biological function and be more supportive of plant growth. I… More
This post was originally published on the Soils Matter blog. One of soil’s many important functions is to act like a sponge. As nature’s blanket, soil soaks up water that falls as rain or melts from snow and ice. Soil not only stores water, it also helps to filter out pollutants such as nutrients, bacteria,… More
Soil. Stormwater. Sustainable Infrastructure.
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