Humans are increasingly urbanizing natural landscapes, which lowers the land's ability to infiltrate stormwater and increases surface water runoff. This, combined with decreasing water availability in the Intermountain West, produces the issue of sustainable stormwater management. Professionals are moving toward using green storm water infrastructure (GSWI), but the public is not often aware of the impacts of stormwater on natural environments or what the purpose of GSWI is. Stormwater management site design techniques are evolving to use visible, sustainable methods that celebrate and highlight stormwater, rather than treating the valuable resource as a disposable nuisance, channeling it underground and out of sight. A technique coined by Stuart Echols and Eliza Pennypacker as Artful Rainwater Design (ARD) utilizes GSWI as spaces which allow water to infiltrate where it falls and work to highlight stormwater as a resource, creating management sites with community value. Among other goals, ARD aims to educate the public on the processes of stormwater management and the impacts stormwater has on urban water bodies and the local watershed. Through a series of case studies on public university campuses in Utah and that states that border it, this study utilizes the work done by Echols and Pennypacker and applies the educational objectives they defined to guide the design and implementation of educational communication tactics (such as signage and displays) for an existing GSWI site on Utah State University's Logan campus. The design output and written document of the design process will serve as an example and guide for landscape architects, planners, and campus facilities to integrate educational communication into the design of GSWI sites on university campuses. In addition, the educational communication techniques implemented on USU's campus will serve to educate students, faculty, and visitors who visit and use the GSWI site.
Lilian Taft
Lilian Taft is a Master of Landscape Architecture student at Utah State University. Her area of research emphasizes educational communication design on green stormwater infrastructure sites. She grew up in Southern Oregon and has spent the majority of life in the pacific northwest. In her free time, she enjoys doing the crossword, quilting, and spending time outside gardening, snowboarding, and rock climbing.