UBC Agricultural Road Walkway Project – Week Seven
Mar 9th, 2012 by irisfeng
Hello everyone! Finally we have reached the end of this outstanding project. After weeks of collecting data and evaluating the sites, we have finally reached a verdict on the sustainability of Agricultural Road Walkway.
In this blog post, we will give a brief overview on Criterion 3.5, which was not included in the previous blog as well as summarize the project and its environmental and social impacts.
Here is the evaluation on Criterion 3.5:
3.5 Manage stormwater on site (5-10 points)
- The target water storage has been estimated as 70 (using water storage software Tr-55 curve numbers) for Humid West sections across the states which has similar weather condition of our site.
- Widespread infiltration is not often an option due to contaminated soils and the potential for groundwater contamination, less improvement in water storage capacity is needed to achieve credit.
- 7 points were attained as only 40% of total volume runoff from the previous walkway’s runoff was reduced.
Result: 7 points obtained
Overall, the total credits obtained for Agricultural Road is 22 out of 31 without the credits for criterion 3.3 and 3.4 (those will be evaluated by Sustainable Sites.). The Sustainable Sites Initiative evaluates sites on a 4-star rating system, on which Agricultural Road Walkway obtained 3 Stars (for having at least 60% of the points). This is great news for UBC as it furthers their sustainable structures on the Vancouver Campus.
As City of Vancouver is trying to achieve the goal of making Vancouver the greenest city by 2020, the renewal of Agricultural Road also represents UBC’s commitment to being a leader in sustainability and support the goal of the city.
Impacts
UBC has always been working on sustainable developments. Innovative green building, sustainable water system, uses of green energy and promotions of local food and public transit show UBC’s attitude of leading a sustainable community and providing a healthier and better environment to students and residents. While people are being a part of the sustainable campus, the environment will affect their thoughts and create the sense of sustainability.
The Agricultural Road is a good example of UBC’s green project. The natural bioswale and raingarden stormwater filtering and collecting system save stormwater and runoff for irrigation. Lawn is fertilized by organic waste. The whole process of maintenance just involve reused resources.
We learnt a lot more about how to utilize stormwater and maintain a site in a sustainable way during this evaluation project. This valuable experience improved our recognition of sustainability and teamwoking skills. We are grateful for this opportunity to participate in UBC’s green project.
Feel free to contact us at ssi.agrd.walkway@gmail.com for further inquiries.
UBC Agricultural Roadway Group
Congratulations on completing this interesting project. You’ve put together an interesting blog that successfully relays the progress you have made since January!
The need to evaluate what is “sustainable” and what is not, raises interesting questions. What is “most sustainable”? How can one measure what is sustainable? And so on.
It also looks like you have successfully introduced yourselves to stormwater management. this will put you in good stead for your 3rd year program of study.
Congratulations!
Susan Nesbit
Hi Dr. Nesbit,
One section of the blog was updated as mistakenly it said that the site scored 22/44 when in fact it scored 22/31 points, bumping it to 3 stars from 2 stars. This is because criterion 3.3 and 3.4 are not included in this score and are subject to evaluation by Sustainable Sites.
Regards,
Salman
Thanks for this clarification Salman.
Again, congratulations on completing this demanding project.
Regards,
SN