Advancing Nature-based Solutions by Assessing Long-term Performance of Natural and Engineered Media

The objective of this project is to assess different media to enhance performance of Nature-based Systems (NbS) to achieve improved water quality with holistic comparisons of tradeoffs. Guidance provided from this project seeks to provide pragmatic information on water quality performance, cost, maintenance requirements, disposal, and long- term reliability to inform decisions on most appropriate media selection for NbS.

The unique Water Technology Acceleration Platform (Water TAP) facility at CSU including existing pilot-scale test plots enables experiments to effectively address gaps in knowledge on holistic performance of NbS media using real (not synthetic) water sources. The final guidance document product developed will enable informed decisions on NbS media selection to improve water quality with consideration of holistic tradeoffs for those media. This guidance is expected to improve design and outcomes of NbS applications. Selection of appropriate NbS media has the potential to improve ecosystem and human health, while also achieving urban livability benefits.