regenerative parks and parkways
DESCRIPTION
2014 Park Pride Parks and Greenspace Conference Presenters is Brad LancasterTRANSCRIPT
Regenerative Parks and Parkways:Local Harvests and Enhancements
in Our Community Commonsby Brad Lancaster
www.HarvestingRainwater.com
www.DesertHarvesters.org
What is the story of your place?
What is your role in that story?
What is the role of your public land (parks, parkways, rights-of-way)
in that story?2
Sponge Drain
1904
Tucson, Arizona, U.S.A and the Santa Cruz river
2007
Floods that occurred every 100 years begin to occur every 10 years -
after development paves the watershed and increases the rate and volume of stormwater running off site
Distance is energy
We ignore, deplete, or pollute our local waters
— then import ever more distant water
The largest consumer of electricity (and single source producer of carbon)
in Arizona is the pumping of water
The average annual rainfall in Tucson is (280 mm) 11 inches
Yet more rain falls on the surface area of Tucson in a year of average rainfall,
than the annual consumption of Tucson’s water-utility water
Said another way, in you were to divide the average annual precipitation falling on Tucson by its population,
then divide again by 365 days a year, and you get:
Harvest and utilize on-site water (rainwater, stormwater, greywater,
condensate, etc) as close as possible to where it falls
within the oasis zone - within 30’ (9 m) of catchment
surface
Path to Scarcity Path to Abundance
• Turns resources into wastes
• Relies on the costly and imported
• Consumes more than it produces
• Disintegrated Drains
• Turns “wastes” into resources
• Relies on the free and local
• Produces more than it consumes
• Integrated Harvests
Cutting street curb
In Tucson, AZ (receiving 11 inches [280 mm] of annual rainfall)
One mile of an average residential street drains over
ONE MILLION GALLONS of rainfall per year.
That’s enough water to sustainably irrigate 400 native food trees per mile,
or one tree every 25 feet on both sides of the street - irrigated by the street.
^ 1994
2006 >
13
Curb cuts legalized in 2007$45 permit
Curb core hole 4-inch (100-mm) diameter
Prunings from tree used as mulch to fertilize tree and
increase soil moisture
12 to 14% of the city’s solid “waste” stream is yard trimmings
Brush and Bulky transformed into Chipped and Mulchy
Chipped and Mulchy
Mitchell Pavao-Zuckerman, PhDBiosphere 2 & School of Natural Resources and EnvironmentUniversity of Arizona [email protected]
• Trees associated with mulched water-harvesting earthworks are able to grow 33% larger than those without.
This more than doubles the trees’ potential sequestration of atmospheric carbon, passive cooling, and food production
• The presence of more organic matter in the soil enables the soil itself to sequester additional carbon
• The natural pollutant-filtering/bioremediation ability of the soil mulched with organic material was ten times greater than that of rock- or gravel-mulched soil
19
DesertHarvesters.org
Dunbar/Spring neighborhood intersection repair, 2006inspired by CityRepair.org
The neighborhood now annually harvests over 660,000 gallons (2 acre feet) of stormwater
in the public right-of-way within 10 water-harvesting traffic circles, 33 chicanes, and 85 street-side
basins fed by 50 curb cuts and 35 cores
But we could, and need to, increase that harvest by at least 30 times
Before chicane ^
After chicane >
Gila Monster bench by Hiro Tashima next to neighborhood book nook
Lost Sonoran Sucker fish and water-harvesting Horned Lizard
sculpture by Joseph Lupianiin a water-harvesting traffic-calming chicane
Scarcity – heat island Abundance – cool island5.5 ˚C (10˚F) increase of summer temperatures 5.5 ˚C (10˚F) decrease of summer temperatures
Scarcity – heat island Abundance – cool island5.5 ˚C (10˚F) increase of summer temperatures 5.5 ˚C (10˚F) decrease of summer temperatures
Green Streets Policy in Tucson, AZMinimum ½ -inch rainfall to be harvested in roadway or adjoining right-of-way
http://www.mayorrothschild.com/2013/05/29/tucson-to-capture-stormwater-for-irrigation-of-roadway-vegetation/
www.Watershedmg.org
Public right-of-ways must not be limited to
private utility rights-of-ways
Green Streets Portland, Oregon
City of Portland, Oregon Sustainable Stormwater Overlayscourtesy of Dave Elkin
City is divided up into subwatersheds, and those of highest need are identified. Combined Sewer Overflowsand flooding are the typical problem
Conventional drainage design cost $144 million
Plan with sustainable stormwater strategies cost $86 million.$58 million savings due to the reduction of needed pipe replacement
Neighborhood Greenways / Bicycle Boulevards
http://www.portlandoregon.gov/transportation/article/348902
34
U of A College of Architecture and Landscape Architecture (CALA) Building, Tucson, AZ
www.cala.arizona.edu11 inches (282 mm) annual rainfall
Dead drainageway to living infiltrationway
U of A Architecture and Landscape Architecture Building, Tucson, AZCALA landscape tour www.cala.arizona.edu
Death
According to Grave Matters, today the U.S. funeral industry buries over 3 pounds of the formaldehyde-based
“formalin” with every embalmed body (totaling 800,000 gallons [3,028,000
liters] of formaldehyde a year)
Over time the typical ten-acre [4 ha] swath of cemetery ground contains enough coffin wood to construct more than forty houses, nine hundred-plus tons [816,000 kg] of casket steel, and another twenty thousand tons [18,143,000 kg] of vault concrete
To Life
A green burial does not allow toxic
embalming, concrete vaults, or elaborate caskets, which can reduce the cost of a burial
by $8,000 to $12,000
Honey Creek Woodlands
Georgia’s First Conservation Burial Ground
It is part of an 8,000-acre conservation effort known
as the Arabia Mountain Heritage Area along the
South River
www.GreenBurials.org
What could be the story of your place?
What will be your role in that story?
What will be the role of your public land (parks and parkways) in that story?
www.HarvestingRainwater.com