Join the Charles River Watershed Association and other sponsoring partners on February 3rd, from 6-8 pm, at the Civic Pavilion, 5 Congress Street in Boston to learn how the results of our Boston Flood Survey are being used, get access to local resources, and explore the updated flood viewer tool! We’ll have free food, giveaways, and printmaking activities for in-person attendees.
Visit bit.ly/bostonclimatesocial to register for in-person attendance or join virtually on Zoom. Free.
The Charles River Watershed Association, the Neponset River Watershed Association, and the Mystic River Watershed Association invite you to participate in an effort to make our community more climate resilient. If you see street or sidewalk flooding in Boston, let them know. By visiting bit.ly/floodsurveyboston and completing a brief form with a photo (a less than perfect shot from your phone is just fine!), the City of Boston Office of Green Infrastructure will develop a map of flood-impacted areas to inform policy decisions and design flood mitigation efforts. You may spot a corner drain that always overflows, a dip in the sidewalk that becomes a pond in heavy rain, or something much more significant, but please do report it. Add the link to notes on your phone so you have it the instant you see something.
The Graduate School of Design at Harvard University is pleased to present a series of talks and webinars broadcast to our audiences via Zoom. This lecture will be ONLINE ONLY. For security reasons, virtual attendees must register. Scroll down to find complete instructions for how to register.
This lecture explores whether it is possible to achieve both social justice and environmental sustainability in efforts to mitigate urban flood risk. The expanding scale of urban flooding under climate change has renewed interest in large-scale restoration projects that make room for water in metro centers. However, ecologically functioning green infrastructure – unleashed rivers, sprawling wetlands – is inconsistent with the current governance landscape of fragmented local governments seeking to maximize local land values and minimize affordable housing. Moreover, even smaller-scale urban greening projects have resulted in gentrification, suggesting that larger-scale green infrastructure projects will produce still more racist, classist, and exclusionary development. The design imagination for new ecological landscapes has far outpaced a reimagination of the institutional and governance arrangements needed to enable nature-based solutions that advance social justice and ecological sustainability under climate change. This lecture provides an introduction to U.S. development practices implicated by these transitional landscapes, suggests future directions such as urban food production and regional governance, and invites conversation about ways to bridge traditional disciplinary silos in creating racially just, ecologically sustainable, and fiscally functioning cities.
Linda Shi, MUP ’08, is Assistant Professor in the Department of City and Regional Planning at Cornell University. Her research concerns how to plan for urban climate adaptation in ways that improve environmental sustainability and social justice. She assesses how aspects of urban land governance – including the fiscalization of land use, property rights regimes, and metropolitan regional institutions – shape climate vulnerability and adaptation responses. An urban environmental planner by training, Shi has worked for AECOM, the Institute for International Urban Development, and the Rocky Mountain Institute, and consulted for the World Bank and American Institute of Architects on projects and research in the U.S., Asia, Latin America, and Africa. Shi received a Ph.D. in urban and regional planning from MIT’s Department of Urban Studies and Planning, a master’s in urban planning from Harvard Graduate School of Design, and a bachelor’s and master’s in environmental management from Yale / Yale School of Forestry and Environmental Studies.
Register to attend the lecture here. Once you have registered, you will be provided with a link to join the lecture via Zoom. This link will also be emailed to you.
The event will also be live streamed to the GSD’s YouTube page. Only viewers who are attending the lecture via Zoom will be able to submit questions for the Q+A. Live captioning will be provided during this event. After the event has ended, a transcript will be available upon request.
Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) can restore healthy waterways and revitalize urban communities but requires a multi-disciplinary design approach informed by ecology, community, engineering, and long-term maintenance.
This Ecological Landscape Alliance webinar presentation on January 15 from 12:30 – 1:30 EST will explore several case studies of successful GSI projects in Philadelphia, focusing on examples of community engagement and ecological restoration to successfully improve water quality and healthy neighborhoods. Philadelphia’s long-term stormwater and combined sewer overflow plan, Green Cities Clean Waters, is a national model for GSI implementation in economically challenged urban areas. Julie Snell and Michele Adams lead the session. $10 – purchase tickets at www.ecolandscaping.org
More and more people are getting interested in sustainable landscapes. This March 31st program will address topics that will appeal to landscapers and anyone interested in sustainable landscape management. Come join us to learn ways to make your landscape business greener and sustainable. Topics will include: green infrastructure for storm water management in the landscape, establishing a flower meadow in the landscape, disease management for low input landscapes, landscaping with native plants and managing weeds sustainably in the landscape. The event, sponsored by UMass Extension, will be held at the Town Place Suites, 50 Rosebrook Place in Wareham.
The registration rate is $85 per person, or $76 for per person for groups of 3 or more from the same company (10% discount). Lunch is included with registration. Online registrations will be charged a nominal processing fee.
– See more at: http://ag.umass.edu/events/spring-kickoff-for-landscapers-umass-extension-landscape-education-day-0#sthash.TVzUjdn9.dpuf
