Implementing green infrastructure often provides a diverse range of benefits, from keeping stormwater contaminants out of waterways to improving property values. For a group of seven University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture (UTIA; Knoxville) students who designed, constructed, and released floating wetlands in a tributary of the Tennessee River this semester, pursuing green infrastructure came with an additional reward: class credit.
Population density on the Hawaiian Islands is growing rapidly, with figures from the 2020 U.S. Census suggesting more than 100,000 people have immigrated to the state since 2010. At the same time, research from the University of Hawai’i at Mānoa (UH; Honolulu) indicates that the effects of climate change are manifesting as lower overall rainfall volumes, but more frequent intense downpours across the archipelago in recent years. For these reasons, attention to stormwater management is growing among Hawaiian conservationists, municipal governments, utilities, and researchers. The City and County of Honolulu, for example, is in the process of establishing a new stormwater utility that would join more than 2,000 U.S. municipalities in charging user fees based on the impervious space of their property, with proceeds funding new stormwater-management improvements.