Help Mother Nature Recycle fallen leaves
Help Mother Nature Recycle fallen leaves by MulchMowing them. Please don’t rake them into the street gutterpan or ditchline where they will clog the City stormdrain system. http://ow.ly/i/7w9t3 http://ow.ly/i/7w9ti http://ow.ly/i/7w9tt http://ow.ly/i/7w9tD
Green City, Clean Waters: 25-year plan to transform Philadelphia’s creeks & rivers
Green City, Clean Waters is Philadelphia’s 25-year plan to transform the health of the City’s creeks and rivers primarily through a land-based approach. By implementing green stormwater infrastructure projects such as rain gardens and stormwater planters, the City can reduce water pollution impacts while improving our essential natural resources and making our neighborhoods more beautiful.
Full Story is here: http://ht.ly/A8dA5
Sustainable Stormwater management: How it is implemented and what are the benefits
Sustainable Stormwater management: How it is implemented and what are the benefits?
Stormwater has traditionally been seen as a nuisance – something that needs be collected and moved out of sight as quickly as possible. When Stormwater is seen as a resource that can be managed sustainably, everyone benefits. Sustainable Stormwater management practices help a project achieve success across the triple bottom line measurements: financial, environmental, and social.
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Michael Van Valkenburg’s New Toronto Park is a Stormwater Treatment Plant in Disguise
Michael Van Valkenburg’s New Toronto Park is a Stormwater Treatment Plant in Disguise
Full Original Story is here: http://ht.ly/A6ikQ
The park is designed as a “cistern” that stores and treats stormwater to protect the surrounding neighborhood from flooding. This is done through natural elements like plantings, bioswales, a landscaped berm, and a living marsh. But the play areas do their part as well. Water used at the large splash pad, for example, is treated and then directed back through the marsh.
In Dakar, paving streets with many hands and few machines
In Dakar, paving streets with many hands and few machines
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DAKAR, Senegal — A small crew of young men and women are fast at work in the Place de l’Obélisque, turning the central square of this capital city from a wide patch of asphalt and sand sidewalks into a colorfully paved plaza.
The paving program won’t solve all of Dakar’s road problems. There’s not sufficient funding to repave the whole city and even if there was, it would take 20 years to pave all the streets at the current pace.
But the paving is solving some of Dakar’s problems. The pavers are designed to facilitate rainwater drainage. Small spaces between the blocks allow water to filter into the ground rather than run off. In a neighborhood called Grand Yoff, which has suffered from constant flooding during the rainy season since the mid-1990s, streets now drain better as a result of the paving program. Sand streets and sidewalks that used to wash out in heavy rains are now stabilized.
And one thing everyone agrees on is that the newly paved streets look great. The colorful geometric patterns are giving parts of Dakar a distinctive look. On roads where pedestrians previously had no choice but to walk in traffic, there are new paved walkways where adults stroll or sit talking under trees while boys and girls play. “The dream has become a tangible reality,” says Theophile Bama, director of Yelhy Technology Africa. “There is a qualitative change in the appearance of Dakar.”
You Can’t Stop Urban Flooding – In 1942, Gilbert White said cities should accommodate floods
From The Rockefeller Foundation 100 Resilient Cities Centennial Challenge: You Can’t Stop Urban Flooding – In 1942, Gilbert White said that cities should accommodate floods rather than try to stop them.
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Boulder, Colorado, is no stranger to environmental shocks and stresses. Devastating flash floods have hit the city, in the foothills of the Rocky Mountains, half a dozen times since 1890. Each one resulted in needlessly high death tolls and severe property damage. Last fall, Boulder endured another extreme flood, but due to some new resilient infrastructure, things went a little differently this time.
After a sudden, massive 1976 flood in Big Thompson Canyon took the lives of 139 people, Boulder flood planner Gilbert White recognized that without major investment and planning, tragedy could strike again.
He led the charge to prepare for future flooding. Some of the mitigation efforts were significant innovations — like installing a bridge designed to swing out of the path of a rushing flood, instead of becoming dangerous debris. Others were small, such as lining streams with jagged rocks to redirect the energy of rushing water.
Last September, these measures were put to the test when Boulder was hit by another flash flood, the worst natural disaster in decades.
Did Boulder’s investment in infrastructure and resilience planning pay off? Watch the video to see for yourself.
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