Today’s guest post is from Nathalie Shanstrom, a sustainable landscape architect with the Kestrel Design Group. It’s a little science-y, but still very readable. If you’re not a stormwater geek, don’t be deterred – there’s a lot of great information in here. -LM This series of blogs examines how plants contribute to nutrient reduction in… More
Today’s guest post is from Nathalie Shanstrom, a sustainable landscape architect with the Kestrel Design Group. It’s a little science-y, but still very readable. If you’re not a stormwater geek, don’t be deterred – there’s a lot of great information in here. -LM While bioretention has been shown to be very effective for removing total… More
Development necessarily creates giant swaths of constructed areas that have no unifying ecosystem. It also disturbs existing natural areas that are part of the natural cycling of water, minerals, chemicals, plants and animals. Yet despite these complications, density is valuable in terms of impact mitigation on a per-person basis, as least as far as pollutant… More
Phytoremediation is the use of green plants and their associated microorganisms to stabilize or reduce inorganic and organic contamination in soils and surfacewater or groundwater. In other words, the process of using trees and other plants as biological filters. It is also a key component of what we mean when we talk about ecosystem services… More
New York has an ambitious Green Infrastructure plan, and lately their enhanced bioswales have gotten additional attention. These five foot by twenty foot planters look great from street level, so why do I feel uneasy about them?
I read a lot of news stories about development projects described by words like sustainable, walkable, dense, and multi-use. These characteristics are experiencing a real surge in emphasis from both a design standpoint and from media coverage, and rightly so. They are some of the pillars of community design that support the physical and economic… More
Part 1 of this blog series summarized recent studies in Minnesota, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and King City, Ontario, which all found that the difference between summer and winter performance of bioretention systems is not substantial, even on sites with severe winters. Now that we know that, how do we go about maximizing bioretention performance in… More
Research to date has shown that bioretention can be effective for water quality treatment and for preserving the pre-development hydrologic function of a site, but what happens when air temperatures dip below freezing? Studies indicates that with proper design and maintenance, bioretention can function well even in cold climates.
This hydrograph (diagram showing runoff flow versus time) compares the intense spike of a stream during a storm in an urbanized watershed without adequate controls, with the “gentle rolling hill” appearance of a forested watershed’s response to the same storm. Note the loss of dry weather base flow for the stream in the urbanized watershed…. More
Back in January we posted about a project in Shoreline, WA, where the Silva Cells were being used to extend a sidewalk rain garden underneath paving. This stretch of the project is finally completed! It looks amazing, and we’ve got a case study to tell you all about it.
Uptown Circle, the centerpiece of an urban redevelopment project in the central Illinois town of Normal, was recently honored by the Illinois Chapter of the American Society of Landscape Architects at its annual Celebration in Chicago. Designed by Hoerr Schaudt Landscape Architects, the project received the President’s Award in the Urban category, the highest recognition… More
In the end, the core of all of our discussions about green infrastructure comes down to soil volume. Adequate soil volume is the seedling from which our particular variety of green infrastructure grows (literally and figuratively). It is what allows us to even consider the role that huge, mature trees and on-site stormwater management can… More
Soil. Stormwater. Sustainable Infrastructure.
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