Tag: resilience

Introducing Taylor Weddington

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Nice to meet you! My name is Taylor Weddington and I am an AmeriCorps service member serving as the Stormwater Education Coordinator for the Clean Water Education Partnership (CWEP). I recently relocated to Raleigh from my hometown of Wilmington, NC and I am excited to start my journey with TJCOG in the beautiful Triangle Area.

This past May, I graduated from the University of North Carolina Wilmington with a Bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science and a concentration in conservation. Throughout my studies, I learned about the complexity of environmental issues and how important equitable access to environmental services and education are to the wellbeing of our communities. I first became involved in environmental outreach through an internship with the North Carolina Division of Water Resources, where I focused on creating digital outreach materials for watershed restoration grants. This experience opened my eyes to water management projects in North Carolina and to the abundance of organizations working together to improve water quality.

To accelerate my knowledge of water restoration, I studied Water Resource Management and Sustainable Practices at the Universidad San Ignacio de Loyola in Cusco, Peru this past summer. Comparing the environmental issues and strategies used in Peru and in North Carolina was intriguing and left me with valuable insight.  Although many issues stem from very different and complex sources, I noticed the solutions used in both places had an element of education and direct involvement with communities to instill behavior change. By giving current and future generations knowledge to enhance water quality and mitigate environmental issues, they are given the power to protect and advocate for what is important to them. This is a vital strategy to promote resiliency for all people around the world.

I am thankful that I will be part of CWEPs effort to ensure more people throughout partner communities are being exposed to direct and meaningful stormwater education, and to be part of a program that gives North Carolinians the tools to remain resilient.

Stormwater Management in Extreme Events

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Dr. Bill Hunt’s talk at the Museum of Natural Sciences in Raleigh on August 9th focused on the historic flooding hurricanes NC has seen in recent years, and what that means for stormwater management. We all remember when 6 feet of water stood on I-40, making Wilmington was an island and closing 3200 roads statewide. Our highways were (in theory) designed for the 1/500 year storm event, but Florence was a 1/2000 year event in Wilmington.

An NCDOT staff member in the audience shared that they worked with NC Division of Emergency Management and the Navy (yes, the Navy) to ensure that Wilmington had adequate supplies. Looking forward, DOT is working with the National Weather Service and others to stress-test our highway system, as well as learning from Louisiana’s experience during Hurricane Katrina to study bridge span vulnerability (many bridges went out during Katrina due to wave action.)

So what does this mean for stormwater management using green infrastructure? Stormwater managers know that green infrastructure has been designed to effectively treat moderate-sized rain events. How can stormwater BMPs / SCMs safely convey or pass larger storms, while still meeting their treatment goals? Dr. Hunt said that we will probably need to design our SCMs to be a bit bigger and made out of more durable materials. Thinking more broadly about green infrastructure, he also emphasized the need for preserving lands that routinely floods as public amenities. Designing parks, ballfields, or urban agriculture areas that can survive being submerged and somewhat battered in storms will allow us to “live with water” better.

Dr. Hunt and others in the audience also emphasized the importance of breaking down our institutional and subject matter silos. Stormwater, transportation, and emergency managers–and developers–can learn from one another about how best to manage risk and maintain the resilience of the systems where we work, play and live.

How are you designing your SCMs and planning land use for extreme events? How are your partnerships with other managers evolving? Leave a comment below about what’s helping you solve these challenges we all face.