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Water / Water Use / Flood Mitigation

Water, water everywhere – designing for floods

This little creek in south St. Louis County is part of the vast watershed of the Mississippi and Missouri Rivers (click here for an animated map of the entire watershed). The creek is normally a lazy trickle but with a bit of rain it rises rapidly. In these photos it’s just getting …

Trim Tab 24 / Net zero water at Bertschi School

  Trim Tab v 24  The Water Issue – Winter 2015 issue of the International Living Future Institute’s quarterly digital magazine focuses on water, on “people and projects that are rethinking how water is used in the built environment…” Among its many good articles is one called Bertschi School: The Water Petal about the science …

Year of Le Notre

  A year to celebrate Le Notre – 2013 marks 400 years since the birth of Andre Le Notre, the French landscaper who created the gardens of Versailles and whose influence on urban planners and landscape architects continues to this day.  In his honor, the Palace of Versailles has organized …

Water strategy – what New Orleans can learn from Holland

How the Dutch are Helping New Orleans Stay Dry – excellent 8-min audio interview with New Orleans architect David Waggonner and Netherlands Honorary Consul General Connie Willems about water management and flood mitigation in New Orleans and in the Netherlands.  Even with substantial differences between the two locations – the amount …

Energy use in the U.S. (charts)

    Americans continue to use more renewable energy sources – press release from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory about their 2012 flow chart of energy use in the U.S.  The “Rejected Energy” figure (upper right, in grey) has generated comment. Once again, wind power saw the highest gains, going from 1.17 …

Sustainable construction in the UK

      Best Practices for Sustainable Construction – post on SustainableCitiesCollective has good links, especially for those working in the UK.   Increased flood risk, increased risk of drought and more severe storms means making greater use of sustainable drainage systems such as: green roofs; rainwater harvesting; permeable pavements; infiltration …

NYC’s Urban Green on building resiliency

  18 building resiliency proposals at city council – New York’s Urban Green Council, a chapter of USGBC (U.S. Green Building Council), has recently released their Building Resiliency Task Force Report.  It consists of 18 post-Hurricane Sandy proposals for “making New York buildings and residents safer and better prepared for …

U.S. flood trends and Smart Irrigation Month

  Our Flooded Future, According To FEMA – “By 2100, the area of the U.S. at risk for inundation will increase 45%. These maps–from the guys who are going to have to deal with it–show where.”     5 Strategies to Maximize Smart Irrigation Month – the five strategies in this …

Use of water in healthcare

  How Healthcare Uses Water – page on the website of Practice Greenhealth with statistics on water use in health care facilities and links at the bottom to further information on how to reduce water use in hospital and other medical environments.   Healthcare facilities consistently fall within the top ten consumers …

World’s greenest office building?

  A Building Not Just Green, but Practically Self-Sustaining – the about-to-open Bullitt Center in Seattle hopes to be “the world’s greenest” office building.  It’s aiming for certification with the Living Building Challenge, “the built environment’s most rigorous performance standard” and which requires 12 months of continuous occupancy to qualify.  The article …

All about water conservation

  Links and Resources for Water Conservation Information Water – the website Water – Use It Wisely. has a great page of water-related resources.  It includes links to state, regional, and federal water conservation organizations in the U.S., general conservation organizations, research organizations, water conservation tips, drought info, landscaping and xeriscape, …

Library check – Landscape Architecture Magazine

A number of architecture and design magazines make their content accessible online only to subscribers, so the best way for a nonsubscriber to see this material is to visit a local library.  Here’s what caught my eye during my latest library visit. Landscape Architecture Magazine (Jan 2013 issue) i-Tree article (p 22) …

Dutch cooperative flood management

We’re In This Together: What the Dutch Know About Flooding That We Don’t – The Dutch attitude toward flood control is very different from that in the U.S.  Being a much smaller country where everyone shares the dangers of flooding, the Dutch have  developed a collective approach to mitigation. That collectivist …

Find a Spring

The website Find a Spring lists natural springs from around the world.  As you can see from the map, North America and Europe have by far the most listings, but it looks like other regions are starting to be filled in – India, Thailand, Japan, Indonesia, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, …

Reclaiming South Bronx’ industrial waterfront

A second life in the South Bronx – commentary on WAN (World Architecture News) about one project – Hunt’s Point Landing – in the 20-project South Bronx Greenway effort to reclaim the brownfields and industrial sites that make up much of the riverfront of the South Bronx.  Details and background are …