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Incorporating Social and Human Capital into an Experimental Approach to Urban Water Resources Management
Citation:
Garmestani, A., W. Shuster, A. Roy, O. Green, AND H. Thurston. Incorporating Social and Human Capital into an Experimental Approach to Urban Water Resources Management. Presented at Society for Freshwater Sciences, Louisville, KY, May 20 - 24, 2012.
Impact/Purpose:
To present the interdisciplinary work done on the use of green infrastructure in the Shepherd Creek Area of Cincinnati to the Society of Freshwater Sciences.
Description:
To test the benefits of decentralized Green Infrastructure (GI) in an urban setting, we aimed to install GI in the Shepherd Creek Watershed of Cincinnati. The primary stressor in Shepherd Creek is stormwater runoff. An assessment of the total impervious surface area in the watershed identified that most of the impervious area was on private land. To install GI we engaged private landowners to act voluntarily because there is no strict regulatory cap to drive them. Two resaerch questions were addressed. 1) Can a market-based mechanism provide appropriate incentive to install on-lot stormwater management practices (SWMPs) throughout this small, suburban watershed? and 2) Will the implementation of SWMPs result in quantifiable, in-stream hydrologic, water quality, and biotic improvements in this watershed?