Plan Would Reduce Runoff, Expand Green Space, Emphasize Campus Creek
A student team won first place in an EPA-sponsored competition to envision new concepts for handling stormwater on campuses nationwide. The Maryland team's plan would bump up green space on part of north campus.
Image Credit: Emma Howells
A student-designed plan to redirect flows of rainwater and people while greening up a section of the University of Maryland won first place and $10,000 last week in the Environmental Protection Agency’s Campus RainWorks Challenge.
A second student team took home an honorable mention in the annual competition that invites college students to design of on-campus green infrastructure solutions to address stormwater pollution. Since its founding in 2012, nearly 800 teams have participated in the competition, with UMD teams winning three first place awards, two second places and two honorable mentions.
The Terp team’s winning entry in the master plan category, “Future Flows,” proposed replacing parking lots and other hard surfaces on North Campus with green space that would decrease impervious surfaces by 33%, greatly reduce rainwater runoff into Campus Creek and lower the air temperature in the area by almost 8 degrees Fahrenheit.
Anushka Tandon '23, an environmental science and technology major who also participated on both teams, said the chance to collaborate as an undergrad with graduate students from landscape architecture was a valuable lesson in the power of working across disciplines, as well as a deep-dive she wouldn't have otherwise gotten into architecture principles. "It was enlightening to be seen as a peer among these incredible individuals and for my input to be encouraged and valued," she said.
Read full story on Maryland Today site
