Julia Brasch - Portfolio

JULIA BRASCH

EDUCATION

University of Washington

Master of Landscape Architecture

Fall 2016 - Spring 2019

Seattle, Wash.

Masters Thesis: Floodable Public Space for Resilient Urban Water Systems

History of Urban Landscapes, Ecosystem Restoration, Grading + Drainage, Design Implementation, Advanced Planting Design, Watershed Ecology, Floodplain Management, Water Systems Management, Phytoremediation

Lesley University

Bachelor of Arts, Biology, Cum Laude

Minor, Environmental Science

Spring 2011 - Spring 2014

Cambridge, Mass.

Environmental Field Research, Ecopsychology, Physical Geology, Geographic Information Systems, Evolutionary Biology, Ecology and Natural HIstory, Our Changing Climate, Urban Design for Sustainability

EXPERIENCE

Planning & Development SpecialistSystem Planning - Seattle Public Utilities

> Provides primary technical planning support for Shape Our Water, SPU’s 50-year stormwater/wastewater infrastructure planning effort

> Task lead for Shape Our Water’s foundational Data Synthesis task, including complex geospatial analysis, data management, graphic production, report writing, layout, feedback solicitation + presentations

> Provides support to Green Infrastructure in Urban Villages Program through mapping + geospatial analysis

> Provides graphic design and mapping services to Division

> Provides basic GIS training + assistance to capital projects staff

Drainage & Wastewater System Planning InternSeattle Public Utilities

> Developed first comprehensive inventory of City, SPU GIS data of 200+ layers in support of Shape Our Water

> Provided graphic design and mapping services

> Researched, presented and created documents on innovative water management and climate adaptation strategies

Seattle, Wash. (401) 633-5585

julia.brasch@seattle.gov

jbrasch564@gmail.com

July 2019 - June 2022

Seattle, Wash.

REFERENCES

Leslie Webster Seattle Public UtilitiesDrainage & Wastewater System Planning Program Manager

Leslie.Webster@seattle.gov

206.386.1838

Colleen O’Brien, P.E.

Seattle Public UtilitiesDrainage & Wastewater System Planning Shape Our Water Technical Lead Colleen.OBrien@seattle.gov

Ken Yocom University of WashingtonDepartment Chair and Associate Professor: Landscape Architecture 3950 University Way NE Seattle, Wash. kyocom@u.washington.edu

206.221.0296

> Completed Masters Thesis as Professional Project in support of Shape Our Water

> Provided administrative support, such as project management communications, scheduling, budget data entry

ScanDesign Master Studio & Study TourUW Landscape Architecture

> Participated in funded educational tour to Copenhagen, DK to study Scandinavian approaches to urban water management strategies for climate adaptation, integration of green infrastructure + public space

> Culminated in 12-week studio project applying concepts to Seattle

Department AssistantUW Landscape Architecture Office

> Designed and distributed flyers for department/university events

> Assembled exhibits for department events

> Monitored departmental email account, updated databases

> Processed student applications

COMMUNITY SERVICE

July 2018 - June 2019

Seattle, Wash.

Sept. 2017 - Dec. 2017

Seattle, Wash.

Copenhagen, Denmark

Jan. 2017 - June 2018

Seattle, Wash.

May 2018 - May 2022

Seattle, Wash.

> Pelican Tea Community Garden Site Leader: coordinated renovation and maintenance of urban collective garden through Seattle Department of Neighborhoods P-Patch Program

HONORS // AWARDS

> Three-Sixty Fund Endowed Fellowship: UW

> Sigma Lambda Alpha Honors Society

> Lesley University Department of Natural Science and Mathematics Book Award

SKILLS

> Adobe Suite

> Microsoft Suite

> Google Suite

> ArcGIS

> Data Analysis

> Narrative + technical writing

ScanDesign Master Studio: Greener Belltown, Bluer Sound

Autumn 2017

p.1-4

Masters Thesis: Floodable Public Space for Resilient Urban Water Systems: Potential for the City of Seattle

2018-2019

p. 5-12

Speculative Design Studio: Aggregating Environmental Reparations

Autumn 2018

p. 13-17

Ecological Systems Studio: Bartonwood Natural Area

Spring 2017

p. 18-19

Shape Our Water: Non-Potable Reuse Analysis

2019-2020

p. 20-21

Shape Our Water: Data Synthesis Task

2021 - 2022

p. 22-23

Urban Planning Landscape Design

P-Patch Park: Fortifying an Ecological and Community Landmark

Seattle, WA

Scan|Design Master Studio: Greener Belltown, Bluer Sound

Autumn 2017, Year 2

Professor: Nancy Rottle

Duration: 4 weeks

Group effort

The Belltown P-Patch, a communal garden space developed over the past 20 years by community activists and professionals alike, is an important community landmark for the Belltown Neighborhood, as well as one of the only publicly accessible green spaces in the vicinity. The adjacent parking lot presents a unique opportunity to simultaneously address the area’s combined sewer overflow problem, create more public park and garden space in a densifying urban neighborhood, and protect the p-patch from being shaded out by new development.

The Belltown P-Patch, a communal garden space developed over the past 20 years by local activists and professionals alike, is an important community landmark for the Belltown Neighborhood, as well as one of the only publicly accessible green spaces in the vicinity. The adjacent parking lot presents a unique opportunity to simultaneously address the area’s combined sewer overflow problem, create more public park and garden space in a densifying urban neighborhood, and protect the p-patch from being shaded out by new development.

The 18 foot grade change from alleyway to street level allows us to accomodate an underground storage vault to intercept sewer overflows on their way down Vine St. to Elliott Bay with a capacity of about 140,000 gallons.

The 18 foot grade change from alleyway to street level allows us to accomodate an underground storage vault to intercept sewer overflow material on its way down Vine St. to Elliott Bay with a capacity of about 140,000 gallons.

Separately, stormwater runoff is collected from the adjacent street and buildings and is channeled through rain gardens and constructed wetlands on site, where it is cleaned, reused, and stored for p-patch irrigation, a splash pad, and building use.

Separately, stormwater runoff is collected from the adjacent street and buildings and is channeled through rain gardens and constructed wetlands on site, where it is cleaned, reused, and stored for p-patch irrigation, a splash pad, and building use.

Adjacent Belltown Cottage Park & P-Patch

Site Conditions Existing

Adjacent Belltown Cottage Park & P-Patch Existing Site Conditions Existing Site Conditions

Site Plan

A. Existing Belltown P-Patch

B. Expanded P-Patch Plots

C. Rain Garden

D. Bioretention Street Planter

E. Terraced Seating Area

F. Grassy Slope

G. Community Pavilion

H. Splash Pad

I. Relocated Cottage

J. Constructed Wetland

K. ADA Accessible Path

L. Interpretive Fountain +

Constructed Wetland

M. Building Expansion

N. Roof Greenhouse & Garden Plots

O. Plaza

P. Vegetated Bike Lane Buffer

Section Facing Northeast

credit: Jess Vetrano

credit: Kyle Kotchett

A. Relocated cottage

B. Expanded building footprint & new roof greenhouse & garden plots

C. Community Pavilion

D. Connection to existing p-patch

E. Connection to alley

F. Connection to Wall St.

G. Gathering area

H. Protected bike lane

I. Bioretention street planter with new vegetation

J. New green space

K. Vegetated bike lane buffer

L. Connection between existing Vine St. bioretention planters

M. Terraced rain gardens con nected to Wall St. bioretention planter & adjacent building’s roof runoff

N. Splash pad utilizing UV cleaned rainwater from rain gardens

O. Constructed wetland con nected to building greywater

P. Interpretive fountain into constructed wetland feeding clean water back to building

Q. Gently sloping terraced topography

R. Water cistern for surface water storage: 6,000 gallon capacity

S. CSO vault with 143, 626 gallon capacity

Expanded P-Patch plots, rain garden and splash pad

Floodable Public Space for Resilient Urban Water Systems: Potential for the City of Seattle

MLA Candiate Professional Project

Thesis:

Seattle Public Utilities’ Drainage & Wastewater System Planning Group

Full text available: https://issuu.com/juliabrasch9/docs/brasch_thesis_floodableseattle

Keywords

floodable space, flood resilience, multifunctional public space, green stormwater infrastructure

Description

As a professional project for Seattle Public Utilities, this thesis explores the potential of the urban landscape to act as an integral piece of water infrastructure as a means of adapting to climate change, mitigating ecological impacts to our waterways, and creating dynamic, multifunctional public spaces. An investigation in support of SPU’s Integrated System Plan, this thesis will explore the following questions:

• What do examples of floodable spaces from around the world teach us about how effectively they deliver functional drainage performance along with usable open space?

• How could Seattle benefit from this concept, and what are priority locations?

• How might a framework for floodable spaces in a Seattle neighborhood provide recreational space in tandem with drainage function for climate resilience and ecological health?

This thesis makes the case for the utilization of a floodable public realm as a beneficial tool in the green infrastructure toolbox that can more effectively address the problems associated with urban flooding from increased precipitation as a result of climate change. Making more room for the presence of water in the urban environment will not only eventually become a necessity, but also has the potential to provide the multiple benefits that SPU seeks to catalyze with its future infrastructure investments.

4 SECTIONS:

- Relevant Case Studies: Copenhagen, Denmark and Rotterdam, Netherlands

- Citywide Analysis: Identifying Priority Locations for Floodable Spaces in Seattle

- Focus Area District Analysis: Densmore Basin

- Floodable Spaces in the Lower Densmore Basin

FLOODABLE SPACE

DEFINITION:

Designated areas that are intentionally designed with the capacity to periodically accommodate floodwaters in order to prevent flooding elsewhere, and that simultaneously accommodate other functions, such as usable open space.

While this thesis explores multiple types of floodable spaces, it focuses on recent Danish and Dutch approaches to urban water management, such as the Copenhagen Cloudburst Plan and Toolbox shown below. Copenhagen’s Cloudburst Management Plan engages adaptive measures that mitigate pluvial flooding while also making the city more green and blue by managing rainwater at the surface. The plan came in response to a devastating series of storms between 2010 and 2011 that cost the city 3.8 billion Danish Kroner in damages. The projects realized as a result of the plan will prepare the city for 100-year storm events, whereas the existing sewer system is only capable of handling 10-year storm events.

The goal is to plan for and invest in actions that both protect the city from extreme flood events and relieve pressure on the sewer system during regular rain events. Ideally, urban flood adaptation measures will involve solutions that make the city greener and bluer by draining rainwater at surface level.

In light of climate change, Copenhagen is expected to see more storms of this scale, more frequently, in the future. And as a coastal city, Copenhagen must also contend with the prospect of rising seas. In combination, these two scenarios present enormous challenges, and the interventions designed to address them will need to vary from from area to area in adaptations that are context-specific.

Green Street

Central Retention

Based on detailed flood mapping and risk analyses, the Cloudburst Management Plan forms the basis for specific mitigation efforts as well as general city administrative planning. A partnership approach involving city administration, utility companies, and the public will be essential for successful implementation.

While surface solutions that can can catalyze multiple benefits are preferred, this is not feasible everywhere in Copenhagen. New studies show that mitigation actions should also include measures in which waters are led out to sea via roads, canals, urban waterways, and subterranean tunnels as well.

Flood mitigation strategies and city districts were prioritized by taking both flood risk and the potential for synergies with other projects such as road renovation, new urban development, etc. into account. Essential factors considered include areas with high flood risk, areas in which adaptation measures would be easy to implement, and areas where pluvial flood waters could be drained to localities where they won’t cause damages, such as adjacent to the harbor.

Cloudburst Street/Blue Street

Cloudburst Pipe

Copenhagen Cloudburst Plan and Toolbox (credit: City of Copenhagen)

Benthemplein, Rotterdam, the Netherlands

Lafitte Blueway, New Orleans, Louisiana

Mill Race Park, Columbus, Indiana

FLOODABLE SQUARE

LINEAR FLOODABLE PARK

FLOODABLE PLAIN

problems

CITYWIDE ANALYSIS PROCESS

ANALYSIS GOAL: test an approach for how to identify priority locations for floodable spaces in order to achieve maximum community benefit

PRIORITY

OTHER POTENTIALS for CO-BENEFITS

OTHER POTENTIAL for CO-BENEFITS

“Concerned with flooding” category: racial and social equity and flood vulnerability together reveal where the most pressing needs are, while physical suitability factors indicate locations where floodable spaces have the greatest potential.

RISK AREAS

points

CITYWIDE CONCERNED

MULTIFX ALIGNMENT: SPU

MULTIFX ALIGNMENT: SPU

(priority risk areas)

(priority risk areas)

PHYSICAL SUITABILITY

2) Fourteen “priority risk areas” for further analysis

open spaces, etc. E X P L O R I N G C OB E N E F I T S

The three map sets were used to determine what areas of the city should be prioritized for floodable space consideration, which produced a set of fourteen “priority risk areas” for further analysis.

Potential for co-benefits was only evaluated within the boundaries of the 14 priority risk areas identified.

RESULTS: PRIORITY RISK AREAS

storms

FLOOD VULNERABILITY

FLOOD VULNERABILITY

7

RACIAL & SOCIAL EQUITY

RACIAL & SOCIAL EQUITY

1) What areas of the city should be prioritized for floodable space consideration?

flat areas C O N C E R N E D W I T H F L O O D I N G

Throughout the analysis process, a pattern began to emerge: many of the areas most at risk of flooding are also the ones that have been the most drastically transformed from dynamic and watery landscapes into developed, largely impervious sites. Today, they are static places with little room for adaptability.

After the arrival of Euro-Americans in 1851, the landscape of Seattle was transformed in a matter of decades. Hills were leveled, creeks were piped and paved over to be replaced by roadways, ponds and wetlands were filled and built upon, rivers channelized, lake levels lowered and streams fragmented.

In a place of great topographic variation, areas of flat or low-lying land were often utilized by city engineers for vehicular roadways, industrial areas, etc., because they were deemed more suitable. However, most of the flat lands and low points in Seattle were formed by the presence of water, or at least indicate its historical presence. These are places where water was present either all of the time or intermittently. Many of these waterbodies were piped (creeks), filled, (wetlands), or channelized (river), dramatically altering the functionality of these landscapes, if not outright destroying them - taking what was a dynamic, flexible, and resilient system and attempting to contain it in a state of relative stasis. This has not been without consequence, as the clusters of flooding problems in Seattle around transformed waterbodies and former watery landscapes indicate.

ANALYSIS SYNTHESIS: AREAS of POTENTIAL in the DENSMORE BASIN

Midvale Detention Pond & Midvale Ave N

City-owned property

Enclosed depression

Flood prone

Ashworth Ave N

Lack of drainage infrastructure

Lack of sidewalks

High infiltration

Lack of consistent sidewalks

Stone Ave N

Lack of drainage infrastructure

Planned Neighborhood Greenway

High infiltration potential

Seattle City LightNorth

Woodlawn Ave N & vicinity

Aging infrastructure

Flood prone

Densmore Basin

Residential Lots

Redevelopment Potential

Flood prone

Peat deposits: prone to settlement

Lower Densmore Subbasin

Proposed Intervention Area

Wilson-Pacific School

I chose the Densmore Basin as an experimental site to test the analysis method at a neighborhood scale and assess how a floodable space concept might play out in a specific Seattle context. This basin features 3 separate, high-scoring risk areas and could produce concepts applicable to other parts of the city, as it suffers from pluvial flooding rather than riverine or coastal, is capacity-constrained, and overlaps with Urban Villages, which will see increased development

Licton Springs Park

Enclosed depression

Flood prone

Park space

Degraded habitat

Peat deposits: prone to settlement

Through my analysis process, I identified a number of sites in which several overlapping factors indicated opportunities to leverage advantageous adjacencies to the existing underground drainage system.

AMC Oak Tree 6 & Parking lot

Service Center

PROPOSED INTERVENTIONS

Central Retention: (retrofit opportunity)

Retention Streets: (retrofit opportunity)

Central Retention: (redevelopment opportunity)

Central Retention: (redevelopment opportunity)

Central Retention: (retrofit opportunity)

Cloudburst Street (retrofit opportunity)

Emergency Overflow Area (retrofit opportunity)

I explored the possibilities for interventions in the Lower Densmore Subbasin and Aurora-Licton Urban Village to be part of an interconnected, floodable surface water system, modeled after Copenhagen’s Cloudburst Toolbox strategies and approach. Utilizing existing property, including the right-of-way, across five City departments, this would function as a surface-level supplement to the existing piped system, building flexibility, redundancy, and therefore resiliency into the neighborhood while simultaneously catalyzing other community benefits.

Central Retention

Retention Street

Blue Street/Cloudburst Street

INTERVENTION: Licton Springs Expansion & Restoration: Central Retention

Enclosed depression

Flood prone

Park space

Degraded habitat

Peat deposits: prone to settlement

Redevelopment Potential

higher elevation

TYPICAL CONDITIONS

pathways

regraded wetland area for expanded capacity

wetland berm

restored wetland habitat

Planned Neighborhood Greenway

Redevelopment Potential

Licton Springs Park shows significant potential to function as a floodable space.

-One of last remaining sacred sites of the Duwamish tribe + other Coast Salish tribes

-Degraded since urbanization: still a wetland, but edges choked by invasive species

-Water quality problems: the creek and spring waters receive toxic stormwater runoff from upstream: wetland no longer considered valuable habitat by Dept. of Fish & Wildlife

-Undersized and aging infrastructure: Licton Springs’ waters were formerly part of an interconnected system of groundwater-fed wetlands and creeks, but the piped system that replaced it is insufficient.

-Chronic, occasionally severe flooding has plagued the park and the surrounding area.

The park exhibits many of the characteristics relevant to floodable space suitability and prioritization: it is situated in an enclosed depression, has significant flooding problems and is a City-owned park space. Licton Springs Park and adjacent residential properties are underlain by peat, and prone to peat settlement. These properties also suffer from flooding issues and some have had to install private drainage lines to mitigate it. Several of those properties are considered to have redevelopment potential as well.

The park and the adjacent residential lots represent an opportunity to achieve multiple benefits with a single intervention: as a site for central retention that could be done in collaboration with Seattle Parks and the Duwamish Tribe, who are actively seeking landmark status for the park. Amplifying the functionality of this pre-existing natural drainage infrastructure would yield benefits for both humans and wildlife while also making the neighborhood more resilient to the impacts of climate change, improving quality of life, and connecting urban dwellers more directly with water

AMC Oak Tree 6 Property:

-Large commercial lot in the Aurora-Licton urban village

-Considered to have redevelopment potential: low density of existing land use

-Adjacent to drainage system

-Located in a park gap

-Adjacent to planned bike routes

This proposal calls for the planned neighborhood greenway on Stone Ave N to become a retention street, which has the potential to be connected to other flexible urban surface water solutions. If the site is purchased for redevelopment, SPU could incentivize the new property owner to manage stormwater beyond code requirements to manage right-of-way runoff in addition to the property’s own runoff in times of high flow. Such a policy is currently under consideration by SPU as part of a GSI expansion effort. This arrangement could manifest in the form of a floodable park space in a central courtyard for year-round use by residents, retail shoppers, or even the general public, creating opportunities for exposure to the fluctuations of the area’s hydrology throughout the year with adjacent walkable, bikable connections to other park areas such as Licton Springs.

TYPICAL CONDITIONS

Aggregating Environmental Reparations: Remediating Maury Island

Maury Island, WA

Speculative Design Studio

Autumn 2018, Year 3

Professor: Sara Jacobs

Duration: 5 weeks

A Collaboration with Matthew Grosser

A design exploration motivated by the notion of ‘ecological reparations’, the proposed interventions are intended to address the industrial legacy of Maury Island through environmental remediation and augmentation of natural processes and existing landforms. Maury Island has been dramatically impacted by two extractive industries – gravel mining that carved into its seaside cliffs, and metal processing to the south that showered the island in heavy metals for nearly 100 years, leaving it with hazarous levels of Arsenic in its topsoil. While many areas of Maury Island have been remediated, the former mining sites that are now utilized as open space still have dangerous levels of pollutants, necessitating further intervention.

Arsenic and Aggregate

LEGEND

Arsenic Levels over 100 ppm

Arsenic Levels 40 - 100 ppm

Arsenic Levels 20 - 40 ppm

(20 ppm: considered contaminated) Marine Protected Shoreline

Littoral Drift Cell Direction

Concept and Phasing

Inspired by the rich but imperiled ecology of Puget Sound, this intervention leverages the scar of Maury’s industrial legacy - a former gravel pit on the shoreline - to create a series of terraced spaces in which to collect polluted stormwater and remediate it, utilizing the unique capacity of the local aggregating anenome to metabolize arsenic. Over time, cultivation and proliferation of aggregating anenomes at this site would allow for their deployment to other impacted areas in a remedial network that also supports habitat regeneration along shorelines across the Lower Puget Sound.

SITE DESIGN: Terracing in the upland portion of the site allows for stormwater to be channeled through traditional phytoremediation plantings and into a central basin. Water is released from a multipurpose floodable space into remedial tidepools, where runoff mixed with salt water creates aggregating anenome habitat. The anenomes metabolize the arsenic, rendering it inert while also serving as a cornerstone species in this novel ecosystem. The anenomes are clonal and can be harvested and deployed to other sites impacted by arsenic pollution from the smelter plume.

Situated offshore are sediment building reef structures, which seek to replicate the sedimentary actions of the feeder bluffs that were destroyed by the gravel mine. This sediment is vital to the establishment of eelgrass habitat that shelters salmonids and feeder fish.

Floodable Space

Remedial Tidepools

Breakwaters

credit: Matt Grosser

credit: Matt Grosser

credit: Matt Grosser

credit: Matt Grosser

credit: Matt Grosser

rocky reef habitat breakwater structure

rainy season high water mark

eelgrass meadow habitat

credit: Matt Grosser

Bartonwood Natural Area - Ecological Systems Studio

Seattle, WA

Spring 2017, Year 1

Professors: Ken Yocom, Sara Jacobs

Duration: 4 weeks

Thornton Creek

Watershed

Bartonwood Natural Area

impervious landscape

Situated at the low point of the surrounding neighborhood basin, and the headwaters of Thornton Creek’s South fork, Bartonwood Natural Area offers a unique opportunity for an influential hydrological intervention. The site is an “ecological island” in the auto-centric but growing Northgate neighborhood, which seeks to cultivate a healthier, more ped/bike friendly community with more recreational public spaces. In dramatizing the site’s undulating topography, this design seeks to accomodate stormwater flows, including during extreme storm events, and create a multi-level wetland system that is shaped by the idea of seasonal fluctuation and much longer term fluctuation and succession.

Topographic and hydrologic modifications are intended to recreate a precipiation-dominated wetland continuum based on the survival of a beat bog on site that pre-dates Euro-American settlement. Integrated with a stormwater wetland system to improve natural wetland quality, some areas are periodically inundated, and others permanently depending on precipitation.

CARVE [topography]

cut areas

fill areas +

CAPTURE [stormwater]

filter strips at water entry point

constructed wetland: infiltration + groundwater recharge

retention pond

filter strips at water entry point

REVEAL [circulation]

elevated boardwalk connecting dry meadow zones elevated walkway in wet meadow zones bridges over vernal pools floating platforms within wetlands pathways between wetland platforms

LP of Neighborhood Basin

WET MEADOW VERNAL POOL EXISTING CHANNEL

DRY MEADOW

WET MEADOW WETLAND

DRY UPLAND MEADOW

Shape Our Water - Non-Potable Water Reuse Analysis

Seattle Public Utilities - Drainage and Wastewater System Planning

Seattle, WA (2019-2020)

A component of the Shape Our Water Analysis Stage, the goal of this geospatial analysis was to identify which areas of the city show the greatest potential demand for non-potable water, as blocks or neighborhoods with relatively high concentrations of non-potable demand may indicate potential opportunities to explore non-potable reuse systems at the district scale.

Water reuse systems can provide multiple benefits for the communities they serve, such as improved system resilience to service disruptions due to seismic or climate change impacts, diversified water supply, increased infrastructure capacity, deferred capital costs, reduced volume of wastewater requiring treatment, decreased receiving waterbody pollution, conservation of potable water, cost savings for water customers, and other co-benefits (National Blue Ribbon Commission for Onsite Non-potable Water Systems, 2018).

Potential non-potable demand was assessed though geospatial analysis to create two citywide GIS layers:

1. Intensive Water Consumers: Identification of the city’s relevant and most intensive overall water consumers utilizing customer records from SPU’s Water Line of Business;

2. High Potential by Land Use: Identification of land uses likely to have significant nonpotable water demand, as determined through:

-EPA estimates of how water is typically used on various land use types;

-categorizing each type of water use as either one that can be replaced by a non-potable source or cannot;

-determining an appropriate threshold for what level of total non-potable demand should be deemed high or low potential based on esearch;

-utilizing case study research on non-potable reuse applications to estimate non-potable demand for those land use categories not covered by EPA estimates

When displayed together, as shown at right, “Intensive Water Consumers” (blue) and “High Potential by Land Use” (red) reveal the spatial distribution of the City’s intensive water consumers, those with significant non-potable water demand, and those that are both intensive water consumers and have likely high non-potable water demand (purple).

Because clusters of parcels that are both intensive water consumers and have high potential non-potable demand represent the greatest overall opportunity for district scale non-potable reuse systems, the last part of this analysis involved scanning the datasets for “clusters of potential.”

Sixteen clusters were identified, primarily in Urban Centers and Urban Villages, such as those in the Othello and Lake City Urban Villages, shown below. Areas identified as having high potential non-potable demand could be analyzed as opportunities to explore district scale non-potable reuse systems in capacity-constrained areas, where those systems could relieve pressure on the drainage and wastewater system. This analysis could also inform the development of policies or incentives for onsite non-potable water reuse systems at the parcel scale for new development.

As task lead, I was responsible for authoring the non-potable reuse technical memo, including conducting the research that informed geospatial analysis decision-making, conducting the geospatial analysis, writing the report, creating maps and graphics, soliciting content review from SPU staff and incorporating feedback. Upon completion, I was responsible for presenting this report to various work groups within the Planning and Program Management division of DWW.

Results: Citywide

“Cluster of Potential” in the Lake City Urban Village

Shape Our Water - Data Synthesis Task

Seattle Public Utilities - Drainage and Wastewater System Planning

Seattle, WA (2021-2022)

The goal of the ongoing data synthesis task is to integrate all analysis and data collection work done during the “analysis stage” of the planning effort to help better understand our drainage and wastewater system challenges and start to identify opportunities for multi-benefit solutions.

The analysis stage was focused on identifying and prioritizing both existing and future risks and opportunities citywide and provides the foundation for Shape Our Water. This work falls into five Categories: System Capacity; Asset Age and Maintenance; Water Quality and Aquatic Health; Resilience; and Social, Economic, and Regulatory. The Data Synthesis will bring together information from the Analysis Stage through a series of maps and graphics that demonstrate how the drainage and wastewater system and Seattle’s social and environmental conditions are connected or related to each other. The highest and second highest disadvantage tiers of Seattle’s Racial and Social Equity Index are shown on nearly every map in the data synthesis to show the spatial relationship between our system risks, challenges and opportunities and where Seattle’s low-income and communities of color are living.

The maps and graphics will be organized as a story, beginning with critical historical background on Seattle’s physical and social development, followed by the existing conditions of our drainage and wastewater system and its context, and finally, using that information to

identify future opportunities to provide multiple benefits with our infrastructure investments.

For example, in the “Existing Conditions” series of maps, the process of mapping DWW’s “Extreme Flooding” challenges revealed a significant relationship between areas that are at risk of flooding in extreme events and the city’s history of development. The radical transformation of Seattle’s land and water since its colonization by white settlers in the late 1800s built vulnerability into the urban landscape when wetlands were filled, rivers channelized, and creeks piped and paved over. The series of citywide maps at right demonstrate that

there is a clear relationship between Seattle’s historic hydrology and flood risk, and thus, there is also a relationship between flood risk and areas that were filled in with debris or other landfill materials as the city urbanized.

Furthermore, filled areas are particularly prone to liquefaction in a seismic event, and these maps show that there is significant overlap between liquefaction-prone areas and flood risk. Much of SPU’s infrastructure in areas of liquefaction is at high or critical risk of failure in a seismic event, and if infrastructure were damaged during a seismic event, the impacts of an extreme storm event could be greater.

Data Synthesis Storyboard.

How can SPU turn challenges like these into opportunities for multi-benefit solutions?

While the final section of the data synthesis is still in the early stages of development, the maps at right offer an example of one such opportunity for a multi-benefit solution. They show sections of Thornton Creek in North Seattle and Longfellow Creek in Southwest Seattle, both of which are vulnerable to flooding in extreme events, and liquefaction in seismic events.

Both riparian corridors also have significant stretches in which these risks overlap with areas considered to have high potential for floodplain reconnection. These locations and others like them would benefit from a citywide program or policy on property acquisition for floodplain reconnection to transition land uses vulnerable to flood and earthquake damage to a more resilient function. Such a program or policy would catalyze a wide range of co-benefits: floodplains are particularly suited for public park space that improves quality of life while also mitigating flood risk, improving water quality, restoring habitat, recharging groundwater, and reducing heat island impacts. Since SPU has partnered with Seattle Parks and Recreation to co-acquire and co-manage creek floodplains in the past, Parks would be a key partner in the development of any citywide program or policy for floodplain reconnection.

Document Design Examples

Seattle Public Utilities

Seattle, WA (2019-2021)

Shape Our Water technical memo cover, 2021

City of Seattle Stormwater Manual cover, 2021

Room for the River

Location: Nijmegen

Built in: 2016

Designed by: H+N+S Landscape Architects

As the Waal River passes through the city of Nijmegen, the oldest city in the Netherlands, it narrows and bends sharply, making the city and its inhabitants particularly vulnerable to the threat of flooding in times of high river discharge. During high water events in both 1993 and 1995, the dikes of Nijmegen barely held, and about 250,000 people were evacuated from the area. The River Waal is the largest in the Netherlands, and climate change projections indicate that increases in winter precipitation will contribute to increased river discharge, elevating this threat.

How it works/what it does:

The proposed solution, called “Room for the River,” designed with the goal of allowing the river more room in order to manage higher water levels, called for the relocation of the Waal dike as well as the construction of a side channel within the river’s natural floodplain. This also involves the creation of a new elongated island within the river, which has become a unique urban river park in the heart of the city, offering reduced flood risk as well as recreational, ecological and aesthetic benefits.

The “Room for the River” Program also involves the construction of three bridges, a new quay, and a number of district redevelopment projects. Coordinated and largely funded by the national government with the involvement of 19 partners, the plan had three central objectives:

1. By 2015 the branches of the Rhine will cope with a discharge capacity of 16,000 cubic meters of water per second without flooding.

Sources: https://www.ruimtevoorderivier.nl/english/ https://climate-adapt.eea.europa.eu/ http://worldlandscapearchitect.com/

2. The measures implemented to increase safety will also improve the overall environmental quality of the river region.

3. The extra room the rivers will need in the coming decades to cope with higher discharges as a result of projected climate change will remain permanently available.

While previous policy was based on the immediate discharge of surplus water to the sea, the new policy is to retain, store, and eventually discharge surplus waters. The project has a planned lifetime of 100 years.

This project exemplifies the multiple benefits that can be derived from the use of the landscape as infrastructure, furthering municipal safety objectives while improving quality of life for both humans and ecological systems. By harnessing natural flow and sedimentation processes, projects such as these are almost a self-maintained asset. Applications of similar ideas in Pacific Northwest river floodplains could provide enormous community benefits for generations to come.

Plan for side channel and island park. (H+N+S Landscape Architects)

What can the Cities of Seattle and Vancouver learn?

River Waal at Nijmegen, pre-project. (Worldlandscapearchitect.com)

River Waal at Nijmegen, post-project. (Siebe Swart)