EDI Staging Environment
Urban Ecological Infrastructure (UEI) are urban ecological structures whose ecological functions are increasingly being used to deliver key urban services and address urban sustainability challenges. The growing use of UEI to address urban sustainability challenges can bring together teams of urban researchers and practitioners to co-produce UEI design, monitoring and maintenance. However, this co-production process received little attention in the literature, and has not been studied in the Phoenix Metro Area.
This study examined several components of a co-produced design process and related project outcomes associated with a small-scale UEI project – bioretention basins installed at the Arizona State University (ASU) Orange Mall and Student Pavilion in Tempe, AZ. We explored the design process associated with the collaborative development of an ecohydrological monitoring protocol for assessment of post-construction performance of this UEI system. This co-production process involved both CAP LTER researchers and practitioners, designers, and managers at ASU and associated third-party consultants involved in site design and management. Together, these researchers and practitioners co-produced a suite of ecohydrological metrics to monitor the performance of the bioretention basins at Orange Mall. Specifically, this protocol evaluated the performance of the UEI system with regards to two of it’s key design goals: storm water capture and storm water quality improvement. The ecohydrological data produced by the implementation of this monitoring protocol are presented here. Monitoring equipment were installed throughout the site in June and July 2018. Site monitoring and data collection began in August 2018, and continued through Feb 2019.
EDI is a collaboration between the University of New Mexico and the University of Wisconsin – Madison, Center for Limnology:
