2022 Early Hearing Detection & Intervention Virtual Conference
March 13 - 15, 2022
6/05/2017 | 3:00 PM - 3:15 PM | GREEN FIRST TO STREAMS FIRST: AN ALTERNATIVE VISION FOR PITTSBURGH’S CITY-WIDE GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE ASSESSMENT | 302A
GREEN FIRST TO STREAMS FIRST: AN ALTERNATIVE VISION FOR PITTSBURGH’S CITY-WIDE GREEN INFRASTRUCTURE ASSESSMENT
Pittsburgh’s Green First Plan aims to reduce combined sewage overflows (CSOs) while accruing economic, social, and ecological benefits—green infrastructure’s (GI) “triple bottom line”. Historically, many of Pittsburgh’s stream systems were piped into or captured by sewers, creating the combined sanitary-stormwater sewer system. The Plan identifies which systems provide the greatest opportunity for CSO reductions using GI. Removing stormwater flows from sewers by re-establishing streams and floodplains would provide greatest CSO reductions and greatest improvement in other social and ecological benefits compared to alternative interventions. Yet while the triple bottom line touts ecological benefit, it receives the least consideration of the three GI objectives. Therefore, because ecologists were not at the planning table, these benefits were undervalued and stream restoration was under-prescribed compared to detention basins and rain gardens. Ecologists should be more involved in visioning and planning, so that benefits of streams for stormwater capture, conveyance, nutrient cycling, recreation opportunities, etc. can be better quantified and considered. We re-conceptualize Pittsburgh’s watersheds based on a fuller consideration of ecological and social benefits of stream restoration as an approach to GI.
- C16 Restoration Ecology
- S05 Social-Ecological Freshwater Systems
- S02 Urban streams, aquatic ecology, and stormwater engineering: How do we encourage integration, opportunities and collaboration in an era of green infrastructure innovation?
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Presenters/Authors
Tim Nuttle
(), Civil & Environmental Consultants, Inc., tnuttle@cecinc.com;
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Nate Ober
(), Civil & Environmental Consultants, nober@cecinc.com;
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