ParkPatrolPodcastFinal

In this podcast episode, the hosts discuss the sustainability of urban parks and their infrastructure. They define urban parks as green spaces in urban areas with pathways, native species, and bodies of water. They interview a landscape architect who talks about sustainable infrastructure, including continuous resource use, land stewardship, and education. They also discuss the benefits of sustainable infrastructure, such as environmental improvements, public health benefits, and community resilience. They mention examples of parks with green roofs and permeable pavement that help with biodiversity and water quality. They emphasize the importance of balancing ecological preservation and human interaction in park design. They also talk about measuring the success of park infrastructure through biodiversity monitoring, stormwater runoff values, community satisfaction surveys, and temperature monitoring. They mention a park in Bangkok that uses green roofs and a flood management system to Hello, listeners, and welcome to the Park Patrol podcast, the podcast for park lovers by park lovers. I'm your host, Vincent Hogan, and on today's episode, we will be discussing sustainability of urban parks, as well as their infrastructure. Joining with me today, as always, is Tyler Hans, our field expert, and Emily Rossini, our community engagement specialist, and they will be helping us dive into this topic for today. We also have a special guest and fellow park lover, Anjulia Dubas, who will also be helping us with our discussion. The first thing we should talk about is what exactly is an urban park, as well as what are some of the notable features about them. Would you care to enlighten us, Tyler? I'd love to. An urban park is basically a green space in an urban area that's usually filled with lots of pathways to walk on, as well as many of the native species local to the region, and typically has some sort of body of water. You can't go wrong with all those factors. I was also just wondering, so what exactly makes a park sustainable? I'm so glad you asked, Anjulia. Recently, I was lucky enough to interview University of Delaware professor, Anna Wick, and part of our discussion was on that very topic. For those of you who don't know Professor Wick, she teaches in the Plants and Soil Science Department at UD, as well as being a registered landscape architect in Pennsylvania and Delaware. She has been in the practice for 17 years, and is one of the most experienced people we have been able to talk with. Exactly. And to start off with our interview, I asked her about how she defines sustainable infrastructure, particularly in terms of landscape design. She responded with some factors, such as interventions that supported continuous resource use on land, stewarding the land to make generations have access to our ecosystem services if they don't already have such, and finally, safeguarding the maintenance of the ecosystem, as well as continuous education on that subject. Wow, I never would have thought of education as being a part of infrastructure. Absolutely, education is a huge part of the infrastructure, and to go along with what Emily and Professor Wick said, there are many other benefits to having a sustainable infrastructure, such as environmental, increase in public health, and community and or climate resilience. That's amazing. Do you mind going into more detail about these different benefits? Gladly. For the environmental benefit of sustainable infrastructure, I felt that adding some infrastructure pieces, such as green roofs, rain gardens, and plant landscaping, would prove to be very useful in helping the environment for a few reasons. Firstly, it would allow for there to be an increase in biodiversity of the native species, since it would allow for there to be more habitat landing spots for these native species. It also helps to have rain gardens, since it will allow for the water quality of the area to be improved, plus the extra storage would, in turn, reduce the risk of flooding. That's incredible. And it reminds me of another park that I was reading about. I, of course, was reading about parks, since I am such an avid fan. Anyway, the park I was reading about was in Chicago, more specifically, the Millennium Park. What really stuck out to me at this park was the incredible use of some of these elements that you mentioned, such as green roofs and permeable pavement. This pavement, I felt, was truly remarkable, since it allows for the excess water, like storm water and other runoff, to flow into the ground and reduce that risk of flooding that you mentioned. That is a great example that you bring up, Julia. To branch off of your example real quick before Tyler continues with his information, I just wanted to bring up something else that Professor Wick had told me about, which is how to navigate a balance between ecological preservation and human interaction in this design. She was able to tell me that parks should be an extension of nature, and that the primary goal of a park should be to find a harmony between humans and nature. From what you have said, it sounds like the creators of that park in Chicago did a great job of doing just that. It sounds like Professor Wick has provided you with a lot of details about how to help combine the efforts of the government to help promote this preservation and human interaction. Tyler, as you mentioned, the other two points you spoke about were public health and community resilience. Do you care to expand on those and maybe show us how even further there can be a combination between the environment and the humans interacting with it? I'd be happy to. Starting with public health, it is easy to see how there is a relationship there. The benefits of helping the infrastructure of urban parks means that there will be a number of health improvements as well. Some of these improvements include improved air quality, thanks to an increase in plant life and tree life to help filter the air, as well as using this increased number of trees to help provide shade and lower heat-related illnesses in a park, such as heat stroke and dehydration. As for the community resilience, some of these benefits were mentioned before, such as the reduction of flooding in the area, as well as beating the heat. Another way resilience can be seen is in the general sense, like the amount a park is used, as well as how healthy all of the native species are in the region. That's just incredible. It's so amazing to me that all of this can come from something as simple as a park. However, I do have another question. How exactly can we see and even measure these improvements? I can handle this question. Basically, there are a few ways in which we can see this growth in a quantitative way. The first one that I can think of is monitoring the biodiversity in the region, since we would be able to see the increase in biodiversity in the region, thanks to introducing more native species that can help pollinate the land and further along the food chain and the food web in the area. Another way we can measure the success of the infrastructure in the park is to check on the new stormwater runoff values in the region to see how much less there is. I know we all have mentioned flood mitigation a few times and how crucial it is in a system, so I wanted to just bring up one more park that I know of which is really benefiting from having this infrastructure. There's a park in Bangkok that has new innovations created by a landscape architect in which he used a green roof and a flood management system to collect all the rainwater on a farm and then use it to help tend to the crops in the area. It was really successful and it allowed for over 10 acres of green space to be opened. No way! I haven't heard of a park like that before, but I am definitely impressed by the sheer size of the green shade that they were able to make in that region. I agree that something of that scale is truly impressive and really shows how collaboration between the community and government can be a success. I feel as though this relationship shows that there is strong legislation in the area as well as an understanding of the direct effects of the project on the surrounding community and environment. Precisely. And that relation of government and community is another way that we can measure the success of infrastructure in an urban park. Specifically, by remaining in constant communication with stakeholders of the park, we can send them surveys and questionnaires that will allow for anyone to see what the satisfaction of the park's changes are. Finally, the last measure that I can think of is checking the average temperatures within the park to see if there is a decrease. This decrease will mean that the park is successful in lowering the temperatures and will help with heat-related illnesses that were mentioned before. I also have one more measure that can be done that I discussed with Professor Wick. We went over ways to see the reliance of the infrastructure, and one factor that she brought up was the Sustainable Sites Initiative. This is basically the landscape version of LEED, and it is a great way for a park to measure its sustainability in a quantitative way. Thank you for those ways to see the change. I will definitely be applying these to my everyday use in my park adventure. We are always happy to help, and that should do it for our episode. Thank you so much for joining us, Julia, and thank you to all our viewers for tuning in. If you have any park-related questions that you would like answered, feel free to go to our website, www.parkpatrol.com, and we will be happy to answer them. Thank you again so much for listening, and we will talk to you in the next week. Park Patrol, out.