Crowd Sourcing to Improve Urban Stormwater Management
Abstract
Over half of the world's population currently lives in urban areas, a number predicted to grow to 60 percent by 2030. Urban areas face unprecedented and growing challenges that threaten society's long-term wellbeing, including poverty; chronic health problems; widespread pollution and resource degradation; and increased natural disasters. These are "wicked" problems involving "systems of systems" that require unprecedented information sharing and collaboration across disciplines and organizational boundaries. Cities are recognizing that the increasing stream of data and information ("Big Data"), informatics, and modeling can support rapid advances on these challenges. Nonetheless, information technology solutions can only be effective in addressing these challenges through deeply human and systems perspectives. A stakeholder-driven approach ("crowd sourcing") is needed to develop urban systems that address multiple needs, such as parks that capture and treat stormwater while improving human and ecosystem health and wellbeing. We have developed informatics- and Cloud-based collaborative methods that enable crowd sourcing of green stormwater infrastructure (GSI: rain gardens, bioswales, trees, etc.) design and management. The methods use machine learning, social media data, and interactive design tools (called IDEAS-GI) to identify locations and features of GSI that perform best on a suite of objectives, including life cycle cost, stormwater volume reduction, and air pollution reduction. Insights will be presented on GI features that best meet stakeholder needs and are therefore most likely to improve human wellbeing and be well maintained.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2017
- Bibcode:
- 2017AGUFMPA31C..07M
- Keywords:
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- 0493 Urban systems;
- BIOGEOSCIENCES;
- 1964 Real-time and responsive information delivery;
- INFORMATICS;
- 4329 Sustainable development;
- NATURAL HAZARDS;
- 6334 Regional planning;
- POLICY SCIENCES