Strategic Concessions: Negotiating Human Land Use to Serve the Habitat Needs of the Eastern Meadowlark

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Date
2018-01-24
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Virginia Tech
Abstract

Our civilization is facing increased populations and scarcity of habitat for a variety of species. Encroaching on these landscapes while engaging in habitat fragmentation and destruction, has negatively impacted biodiversity and subsequently put thousands of species at risk of going extinct.

With humans causing peril for various species via habitat losses and degradation due to our developing of landscapes, as Landscape Architects, we have a responsibility to minimize, negate, or rectify these losses and while still providing serviceable landscapes for our fellow humans. One possible avenue to pursue when motives for the well being of the collective are being considered is designing landscapes that serve both human and species in unison, with services being provided for humans and satisfying the needs of wildlife.

This project is based on a desire to accommodate the needs of a growing community by providing a stormwater retainment system serving as a pedestrian artery to a historic river, while also accommodating the needs of wildlife by establishing a constructed meadow that satisfies habitat requirements for the Eastern Meadowlark.

Through analysis of storm water volumes, building code setbacks regarding waterways, habitat requirements of the Eastern Meadowlark and land volume manipulation, a solution to many obstacles facing community and species has been posited in this project: the Dianna Dayle River Walk.

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Keywords
SCS method, Reconciliation Ecology
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