CUAHSI Cyberseminar Series on Sustainable Urban Streams – featuring Anne + 4 more outstanding hydrologists!

Not in northeast Ohio for tomorrow’s Water Symposium? Don’t worry! There’s lots of urban hydrology coming your way through CUAHSI’s next cyber-seminar series. It starts tomorrow afternoon and extends through December 5th. You’ll hear from four outstanding hydrologists, and then Anne will attempt to have something to add on December 5th.

Sustainable Urban Streams – Science to Support Evolving Management Objectives

The management of urban streams and rivers has historically emphasized two critical ecosystem services: stormwater conveyance (flood protection) and wastewater disposal. Maximizing these services has generally resulted in major alteration of aquatic ecosystem structure and function, and reduced provision of other ecosystem services, such as aesthetics, recreation, food and biodiversity. Recent decades have seen a renewed appreciation of the value of these other services, an improved understanding of the processes by which streams are altered, and the development of engineering and design practices to manage these processes in ways that can provide multiple services.

In this series, we will hear from five presenters:

On Oct. 31 Larry Band will present Green infrastructure, groundwater and the sustainable city, discussing the altered surface and subsurface hydrology of urban areas, and arguing that effective management needs to consider the full critical zone, from rooftop to bedrock. Band is the Voit Gilmore Distinguished Professor of Geography and the Director of the Institute for the Environment at the University of North Carolina.

On Nov. 7 Derek Booth will present Watershed context and the evolution of urban streams, exploring the management implications of different regional and watershed settings on the development and restoration of urban channels. Booth has worked as a geologist and geomorphologist in academia, government agencies and the private sector, including a stint as the president of Stillwater Sciences, Inc., and is an adjunct professor in the Bren School of Environmental Science and Management at UC Santa Barbara.

On Nov. 14 Tim Fletcher will discuss The Little Stringybark Creek project—the world’s first full-catchment retrofit of stormwater infiltration and management practices, which has been in operation and under active study since 2008 under the co-leadership of Fletcher and Prof. Chris Walsh. Fletcher is Professor in Urban Ecohydrology at the University of Melbourne (Australia), and the author of over 300 publications on stormwater quality, treatment and impacts.

On Nov. 21 Emma Rosi-Marshall will present Contaminants of emerging concern as agents of ecological change in urban streams. She will discuss how contaminants such as pharmaceuticals and personal care products can have surprising and sometimes cascading effects on aquatic organisms. Rosi-Marshall is an Aquatic Ecologist at the Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies and the Director-Designate of the Baltimore Ecosystem Study, one of only two urban long-term ecological research sites in the U.S.

All seminars are at 3:30 Eastern time. For more info, and how to connect, see details here: https://www.cuahsi.org/cyberseminars

On Dec. 5th, Anne Jefferson will present Stormwater-Stream Connectivity: Process, Context, and Tradeoffs, discussing new insights into the downstream effects of conventional stormwater management and green infrastructure practices, how watershed context regulates these effects, and how stormwater-stream management strategies require tradeoffs in the ecosystem services provided by urban watersheds. Jefferson is on the faculty at Kent State University, has had her work funded by NSF, EPA, and USGS, and engages in interdisciplinary collaborations with ecologists, social scientists, and architects.
The series will be hosted by Seth Wenger, Director of Science of the River Basin Center at the University of Georgia.