By Colin McDonald
My example of a human-environment interaction on campus is the stormwater infrastructure on campus, with the green roof on the north end of research hall serving as my specific example of green stormwater infrastructure.
The interaction taking place is humans building stormwater infrastructure to direct where stormwater goes and to avoid flooding of impermeable surfaces such as roads and concrete walkways. Stormwater is the resource unit and can move from its point of origin into much larger systems, such as waterways. Stormwater infrastructure was originally built to prevent urban flooding, however the stormwater can also pick up substances such as oil and dirt from the surfaces leading to pollution runoff. Some stormwater enters waterways which humans use in many ways, such as drinking water. This is why filtering pollutants out of stormwater runoff before it enters waterways that can eventually empty out into larger bodies of water is important. “To address these problems, decentralized methods that manage stormwater on-site using vegetation and soil and mimicking natural hydrology are now available and have begun to be applied. This approach is known as green infrastructure” (Dhakal & Chevalier, 2016, p. 1113). From the Fairfax campus stormwater drains into Pohick Creek and Popes Head Creek, eventually flowing into the Chesapeake Bay (Strike, 2021).
Stormwater management has multiple levels of governance. At the federal level: the EPA, at the state level: Virginia, at the local level: the city of Fairfax, and at the university level: “stormwater activities and functions are divided among several different departments and divisions, the Mason Land Development (Mason LD) has the primary responsibility for overall compliance with the permit requirements. MS4 permit compliance activities are coordinated with Environmental Health and Safety Office (EHS), Facility Management (FM), and other Mason units” (Strike, 2021, p. 1).
As the economy grows and development increases more stormwater management is needed, which also means more money must be spent on stormwater infrastructure. The recent infrastructure bill passed by congress contained billions of dollars of spending related to stormwater (National Municipal Stormwater Alliance, 2021).
George Mason has things such as rain gardens and green roofs as well as Mason Pond to address stormwater. One project funded by the Green Fund even built a robot to drive into storm drains and find storm drain blockages (Hellmich, 2018). To improve George Mason could continue to build green roofs and green stormwater infrastructure. Future additions to the campus could be built around green stormwater infrastructure, with planning of how it would be implemented being a very important first step (Lu & Wang, 2021).
Photos
References
Dhakal, K. P., & Chevalier, L. R. (2016). Urban Stormwater Governance: The Need for a Paradigm Shift. Environmental Management, 57(5), 1112-1124. http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00267-016-0667-5
Hellmich, N. (2018, May 23). Mechanical engineering team designs Thunder Rat robot to inspect campus storm drains. Volgenau School of Engineering. https://volgenau.gmu.edu/news/2018-05/mechanical-engineering-team-designs-thunderrat-robot-inspect-campus-storm-drains
Lu, G. & Wang, L. (2021). An Integrated Framework of Green Stormwater Infrastructure Planning—A Review. Sustainability (Basel, Switzerland), 13(24), 13942–. https://doi.org/10.3390/su132413942
National Municipal Stormwater Alliance. (2021, November 11). What’s in the Infrastructure Bill for the Stormwater Sector? LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/whatsinfrastructure-bill-stormwater-sector-nmsa/
Strike, F. (2021). MS4 ANNUAL REPORT. George Mason University. http://facilities.gmu.edu/wp-content/uploads/2021/09/MS4-Report-2020-2021-Reportwith-Appendix.pdf