Earth, Wind and Fire: Just Add Water and Stir Vigorously

Transcription

1 Earth, Wind and Fire: Just Add Water and Stir Vigorously While preventing a natural disaster such as floods and drought is very difficult, measures such as good planning which includes mitigation measures can help reduce or avoid losses. Recent research supports the idea that implementing a more holistic pre-disaster planning approach (or resiliency planning) is more costeffective in the long run. Learning Objectives Learn about four cities affected by flooding and their disaster recovery efforts. Discover which design strategies proved resilient to tidal/runoff surges and subsequent flooding and which were unsuccessful. Understand the challenges of storm mitigation strategies and their impact on future capital and maintenance costs. Understand the lessons learned and how the storms have changed future planning / operational priorities and how landscape architects might apply these in future designs. Natural disasters seem to be occurring with greater frequency. Creating an emergency plan and devoting resources to training and planning can often take the back burner to the crisis du jour. This session will demonstrate the value and payoff in good planning, discuss roles played by landscape architects, planners and park and recreation agencies in responding to the various stages of a disaster, and the critical competencies required to be prepared to respond. This will include the initial response and coordination provided by park operations to secure public safety during the event and following days; the role of recreation and leisure on health and wellness for staff and the public; history of smart growth planning principles from Frederick Law Olmsted Jr. plan for Boulder to today s urban land use patterns that reduced impacts and created resilient and sustainable communities; and visioning for the future through defining next steps during the recovery phase.

2 Boulder, Colorado The Rain The Context of flood risk in Boulder The City of Boulder is situated in the foothills of the Front Range of the Rocky Mountains and contains 15 major creeks and drainages running throughout the city. Boulder is considered the #1 flood risk area in Colorado due to the population, geographic and climactic factors. Typically, the flood risk in Boulder is attributed to flash floods that occur due to thunderstorms forming in the mountains and delivering heavy precipitation in short duration that overwhelms the mountain streams. However, in September of 2013, due to unique atmospheric conditions, a prolonged rain event occurred and delivered 17 of rain over just a few days. This is the amount of precipitation Boulder typically receives annually and this caused widespread flooding throughout the city. Meteorologists have referred to this event as the 1,000-year rain because of the intensity and duration of the rainfall. Throughout the flood event, Boulder suffered $27 Million in damages to city infrastructure. Image Credit: City of Boulder

3 The Response A History of Green Infrastructure Boulder was able to withstand many impacts of the 2013 flood due to the legacy of Frederick Law Olmstead Jr. and his plan and report that were developed in 1910 outlining many recommendations to design and develop the community to withstand flooding events by celebrating the creek corridors and developing outside of the flood boundaries. The report specifies great detail of opportunities and constraints related to the stream corridors and many of the recommendations have been implemented throughout the past 100 years. Another key figure who influenced the resiliency of Boulder is Gilbert F. White, who is referred to as the Father of Floodplain Management. Gilbert White developed innovative solutions for floodplain management based on research that led to Boulder developing many greenways and stream corridors that convey storm water while also providing recreation opportunities. As a result of historic and current planning and development efforts, the City has infrastructure in place that allowed resiliency from the flood and enabled the community to view how many of the planning decisions and design strategies have allowed Boulder to remain resilient to flood events. In 1984, the City developed a Greenways program that has provided the balance among flood mitigation, environmental conservation and recreation. This opportunity has combined the City s Public Works and Parks and Recreation Departments to develop urban corridors that achieve goals of creating sustainable development that supports the community. Additionally, several parks within the community are now located along streams and provide for public enjoyment of public spaces while also educating the community of the flood danger and strategies for mitigating impacts. Image Credits: City of Boulder

4 Image Credits: City of Boulder The Recovery Developing Resilience within the Community The City s Parks and Recreation department has utilized several key initiatives to continue resiliency within the community and providing the opportunity to withstand many forms of natural disasters. Through ongoing planning, community outreach and asset management, the department achieves many goals of resiliency and best practices to engage the community in recovering from events as well as withstanding future catastrophes. Staff uses many best practices to plan and develop infrastructure within Boulder s high hazard zones such as the urban-wild land interface risking wildfire to the floodplains that threaten flood events. These planning processes engage the community in understanding the risks while educating about strategies and opportunities to support one another during a disaster event. Community Outreach By focusing on community outreach, department staff has the opportunity to build community through relationships within neighborhoods and support Boulder residents with many tools for disaster preparedness including education, information and opportunities for assistance. Staff has learned that through community engagement, neighbors get to know each other, build relationships and develop frameworks for support during disaster events. This was evident in the 2013 flood event with many neighbors and community groups volunteering to help with the response and recovery. The City had over 1,700 volunteers contributes 7,100 hours of volunteer help to clean up and rebuild after the flood.

5 Asset Management One of the key strategies that Boulder Parks and Recreation utilized to respond and recover from the flood event was the department s ongoing Asset Management protocol. The asset management program allows the department to consistently track the inventory, condition and priority of all the departments assets such as athletic fields, playgrounds, recreation facilities and natural areas. This wealth of data and information allowed the department staff to develop teams and assess the condition of damages to the department s infrastructure. By working in collaborative teams to document damages, the staff was able to convey this information to FEMA and begin the development of recovery plans and improvements to damaged infrastructure. Image Credits: City of Boulder In conclusion, the flood event that occurred in Boulder in 2013 allowed the City and its residents to see the benefits of a legacy of smart planning, ongoing community outreach and current best practices involved with resiliency within the community to withstand the types of disasters that threaten Boulder. Through the presentation, Jeff will expand upon these opportunities and strategies and how community leaders and professionals within Landscape Architecture can implement practices within their communities to ensure success.

6 Hurricane Sandy Over the past 8 years Susannah Drake developed a practice devoted to making cities more resilient to climate change impacts through the retrofits of urban grey infrastructure systems. Susannah will discuss how that work has evolved through case studies that manage CSOs, dissipate storm surge, manage flood waters, reduce air pollution, quell heat island effect and provide active open space for urban residents. She will include work in New York as well as global projects. Susannah will discuss in greater dept her work on New York Rising, the multi-billion dollar State sponsored relief effort undertaken in the aftermath of hurricane Sandy. New York Rising: Nassau County The New York Rising Community Reconstruction program provides additional rebuilding and revitalization assistance from the state to communities affected by recent storms including Sandy, Irene and Lee. The project empowers local communities by pairing them with design and planning professionals who provide guidance in identifying innovative reconstruction and protection strategies. Image Credits: DLANDstudio, Perkins Eastman and Louis Berger In collaboration with Perkins Eastman and The Louis Berger Group, DLANDstudio developed Community Reconstruction Plans for communities in Staten Island and Nassau County. These plans include long-term visions for resilience, as well as proposals for more immediate projects to ameliorate the effects of past and future storm events. In addition, the South Valley Stream proposal in Nassau County received a Rising to the Top award for green infrastructure which provides an additional $3 million in funding.

7 MoMA Rising Currents: A New Urban Ground DLANDstudio s Rising Currents exhibition calls attention to Manhattan s oppositional relationship between built city and water. Rising Currents proposes an integrated and reciprocal organization of natural and infrastructure systems. A combination of strategies, including perimeter wetlands, a raised edge and sponge slips combined with new upland street infrastructure systems, could protect the island from flooding in response to climate change and related storm surge impacts. Our proposal consists of two components that form an interconnected system: porous green streets and a graduated edge. Rain events will irrigate porous streets to maintain the health of inland and coastal ecologies. Three interrelated high-performance systems are constructed on the coast to mitigate sea level rise and storm surge force: a park network, freshwater wetlands, and brackish marshes. By aligning the advantages of nat urallyoccurring and engineered systems, this new urban model transforms the city in both performance and experience. Image Credits: DLANDstudio and Architecture Research Office

8 Marshes Initiative Image Credits: DLANDstudio and Louis Berger DLANDstudio is a subconsultant to a team lead by Louis Berger Associates for the New York State Economic Development Corporation s Mitigation and Restoration Strategies for Habitat and Ecological Sustainability (MARSHES) Initiative Pilot Project. The MARSHES Initiative s three goals include facilitating larger wetland restoration in ecologically sensitive coastal areas, fostering more predictable and timely permit approvals, and providing greater regulatory certainty of the ecological success of wetland mitigation projects. The phased project will culminate in the longterm stewardship of the restoration site in Staten Island at Saw Mill Creek.

9 Gowanus Canal Sponge Park sponge jurisdistion axon Image Credit: DLANDstudio Working closely with local community organizations, government agencies and elected officials, DLANDstudio initiated and designed a new kind of public open space, a Sponge Park. The design equally values the aesthetic, programmatic and productive impor tance of treating contaminated water flowing into the Gowanus, an EPA Superfund site. The park is designed as a working landscape that improves the environment of the canal over time. This innovative plan proposes strategies to divert excess storm water runoff for use in the public park along the canal reducing the input of rain water into the sewer system. The plants included in our design draw heavy metals and biological toxins out of contaminated water. Proposed floating remediation wetlands incorporate a mixture of aquatic organisms that absorb or break down organic toxins, heavy metals and biologi-cal contaminants from sewage.

10 City of Boulder Parks and Recreation Dept Jeff Haley, PLA, ASLA Parks Planning Manager General Cell Design Workshop Steven Spears, PLA, ASLA, AICP Principal 800 Brazos Street, Suite 490 Austin, TX General DLANDstudio Susannah Churchill Drake FASLA, PLA, AIA Founding Principal 137 Clinton Street Brooklyn, NY General BNIM Jim Schuessler, FASLA, PLA, LEED AP Director of Landscape Architecture Direct Cell 1735 Baltimore Avenue, Suite 300 Kansas City, Missouri