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 mzuckerman@arizona.edu

• 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