Land Conservation

Penn State landscape architecture faculty train a new generation of students to tackle stormwater issues with green infrastructure

Penn State faculty and students incorporate green roof research into their studies and use the campus as a living laboratory.

It takes the mind of an engineer to imagine how to build a living, breathing machine to remove contaminants from our water supply. Dr. Rachel Brennan's research team built the newest Penn State Eco-machine--constructed of duckweed, plants, and fungi.

Is New Hampshire's Oyster Farming Poised to Surge? Oyster farming requires no fertilizer, no feed, and filters the waters of estuaries in the process. New Hampshire's oyster farming industry could eventually help to restore the waters of the LIttle Bay to the point where they could once again support thriving populations of fish and other marine life...if it can scale up. Some growers are already finding that the projections for how many acres of the estuary could support oyster farms have been way overblown, and the ceiling of the industry in the Great Bay watershed might be much lower than was once hoped.

The Allegheny County Sanitary Authority plans to spend more than $2 billion to build miles of new underground tunnels, and to upgrade its wastewater treatment plant. Some clean river advocates are pushing for alternatives, like green infrastructure. We begin our series Ripple Effects: Water Pollution & New Solutions with a look at the debate over sewage in the waterways.

Pennsylvania's climate change forecast is wet. More frequent and increasingly intense storms than in the past are expected. One community which has already faced devastating floods is finding that a particular kind of green infrastructure called a bioswale could be part of the solution.

This last of a 3-part series from from WGTE Watershed radio explores how municipalities are relying more on green infrastructure (like berms, rain gardens/native plants and bio-swail ditches) to control water and street flooding instead of "gray infrastructure" (like traditional pipes and holding tanks).