SRS RN: Sustainable and Equitable Urban Stream Corridors: Improving aesthetic, social, water quality, and ecological values of urban watersheds to achieve downstream rural benefits

University Of Georgia Research Foundation Inc, Athens GA

Investigators

Abstract

Urban watersheds and stream corridors export large amounts of pollutants to downstream rivers. These pollutants include pesticides, trash, and excessive concentrations of sediment and nutrients. These urban non-point source pollutants increase the cost of treating drinking water downstream and contribute to algal blooms in lakes, reservoirs, and estuaries. Many cities are rethinking their goals for urban stream corridors and revising landscape plans and building codes accordingly. Some cities have redeveloped urban waterways as visual, recreational, and social amenities and have improved downstream water quality in the process. This exploratory project asks: What are alternative urban stream corridor management paradigms that would provide a wider range of ecosystem services for a broader spectrum of the community and improve downstream water quality? What are the social, regulatory, and engineering impediments to alternative paradigms? The diverse core team will recruit urban stormwater managers and stakeholder groups to come together to re-imagine urban stream corridors that can provide a wider range of valuable ecosystem services to a wider spectrum of urban residents and improve the function of downstream rural aquatic systems. The ultimate goal is to develop a process by which a broad cast of actors and stakeholders come together to develop new paradigms for urban stream management that provide equitable delivery of ecosystem services to local and downstream residents. This planning grant will lay the groundwork for this new paradigm by facilitating discussions, creating collaborative scientific networks, and integrating and assimilating data relevant to urban stream corridor management. Urban stream problems involve many intertwined hydrologic, ecologic, engineering, social, economic, and political issues, and this effort will test approaches for bridging disciplinary divides in communication, perception, and understanding. This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.