Public Lands
Public Lands generally comprise 10 to 20 per cent of urban areas (Bannerman and Dodd, 1992) and contribute 10 to 15 per cent of total phosphorus to our waterways and lakes (Maunder 2003). Public Lands are ideal locations to retrofit with innovative water technologies, however early retrofit experiences found that construction has fallen short of meeting design and specifications.
Of the six bioretention practices retrofitted into public lands in the Credit River Watershed, despite design specifications from engineers, three sites were constructed with wrong soil mix. This is consistent with findings of a comprehensive field survey of innovative stormwater practices implemented in the James River Watershed of Virginia. The Center for Watershed Protection found that 47 per cent of 72 practices surveyed deviated from design plans (Hirschman and Woodworth, 2010).
The six bioretention practices retrofitted into public lands within Mississauga in the Credit River Watershed are listed below:
Unitarian Church
Lakeside Park
Elm Drive
Portico Community Church
Green Glade Senior Public School
Terra Cotta Conservation Area
O’Connor Park
Infrastructure Optimization: Adaptive Planning and Management Approach for Public Lands Report – Coming Soon
The Infrastructure Optimization: Adaptive Planning and Management Approach for Public Lands will provide a tool to guide municipalities and institutions on how to retrofit their lands with innovative water technologies and, importantly, protocols on assuming the practice.
Six bioretention sites (listed above) will be inspected and monitored with various testing protocols for assumption of best management practices and long-term maintenance. Protocols will be assessed to see which one is most feasible given municipal constraints. Furthermore, the case study investigation into these six sites will examine training and experience shortfalls with project members that led to failures and ways to address these knowledge gaps.
Ultimately, the goal of this project is to build a job sector of Ontario suppliers, contractors, and designers with experience and competency in constructing landscaped stormwater technologies, which will in turn reduce risk to municipalities and institutions to implement innovative stormwater technologies.
