Soaking Up Sea Level Rise: Greenstreet Solutions for Coos Bay, OR Peter Olson UNIVERSITY OF OREGON MASTER OF LANDSCAPE ARCHITECTURE 2023 Table of Contents Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1 - 22 Background . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23 - 35 Design Experiments . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 36 - 61 Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 62- 64 Script Transcription . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 65 - 71 Works Cited . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 72 2 8th grade yearbook picture at Farragut Middle An image that would haunt me for years School in Knoxville, TN ca. 2011 An Inconvenient Truth, 2006 3 4 Present Future? Tourists in Venice, Italy, equip waders to traverse through Tourists in Coos Bay, OR, equip waders to traverse through knee-high flooding to see landmarks; knee-high flooding to see landmarks; c. 2029 The Independent c. 2019 5 D A M N E D I F Y O U D O 5 Literature & Inspiration 6 Climate Change & Sea Level Rise Image source: NOAA 7 Climate Change & Sea Level Rise H H O O H O H H H 8 Climate Change & Sea Level Rise 9 Climate Change & Sea Level Rise 86, 000, 000 Image source: dataviz.com 1 0 Oregon Sea Level Rise Oregon Coast Population: ~660,000 (2020 census) Clatsop Tillamook Lincoln Lane Douglas Coos Curry Image source: USGS Image source: NOAA Image source: Oregon Conservation Strategy 1 1 Estuaries Coastal County Risk Oregon Sea Level Rise: 2100 Projections Coos Bay Seaside Lincoln City Pacific City Coquile Tillamook Warrenton Yachats Image source: NOAA 1 2 Oregon Sea Level Rise: 2100 Projections Approximate Projections per NOAA High Tide Flooding Risk Low SLR Projection High SLR Projection 36” Image source: NOAA 1 3 Tillamook Oregon Sea Level Rise: 2100 Projections Approximate Projections per NOAA High Tide Flooding Risk Low SLR Projection High SLR Projection 36” Image source: NOAA 1 4 Seaside Oregon Sea Level Rise: 2100 Projections Approximate Projections per NOAA High Tide Flooding Risk Low SLR Projection High SLR Projection 36” 72” Image source: NOAA 1 5 Coos Bay COOS BAY, OR “OREGON’S BAY AREA” City Pop. 2020: 16,000 1,500/sqmi 2010: 15,300 Metro Pop. 2020: 31,500 2010: 31,220 CITY AREA: 16 sqmi AVG ANNUAL PRECIP: 65” Driest Months: July, August Wettest Months: January, February USDA ZONE : 9A AVG ELEVATION: +23’-0” ABOVE SEA LEVEL MAIN INDUSTRIES - TOURISM - SHIPPING - MANUFACTURING 1 6 Coos Bay Watersheds + Tidegates + Storm Pipes Tide Gate Watershed Boundary Stormwater Line 1 7 West-to-East Section: Coos Peninsula (3x vertical exaggeration) 1 8 West-to-East Section: Downtown Coos Bay 1 9 Tide Gate Trouble 20 Tide Gate Trouble 2 1 1 A c r e - f o o t = 3 2 5 , 8 5 1 g a l l o n s 20yr/100yr a p p r ox 1 / 2 o f a n O l y m p i c Sw i m m i n g Po o l rainfall event C. Stillman p35 22 23 Typologies for Coastal Management (Kristina Hill) % walls STATIC WALLS DYNAMIC WALLS SEAWALLS TIDE GATES FLOODPROOFING TEMPORARY BARRIERS STATIC DYNAMIC LANDFORM LANDFORM LEVEES BEACHES DIKES SAND DUNES BREAKWATERS MARSHES % landform source: a typology for the next century of adaptation to sea level rise Kristina Hill 2015 24 % static % dynamic China: Sponge Cities Planning, policy, and design initiatives funded by the government for creating greener cities to respond to climate change A drainage canal turned stormwater park on the Haikou Quinli Stormwater Park in Harbin (World Future Council) Meishe River (World Future Council 2016) Image source: World Future Council 2016 25 The Netherlands: Room for the River Land use planning that ‘sacrifices’ flood-prone lands “ AFTER 800 YEARS OF BUILDING HIGHER AND HIGHER DIKES, WE HAVE DECIDED TO DEAL WITH WATER IN A DIFFERENT WAY” - Gert-Jan Meulepas, Project Engineer Image source: Public Space Magazine, 2020 26 Rotterdam, NL: Benthemplein [Water Plaza] Floodable public space Image source: Public Space Magazine, 2020 2 7 NYC, NY: Walls and Barriers Proposals for handling sea level rise Raise exisitng seawall Replace existing seawall Rendering of prospective retrofit (NYECDC) Rendering of USACE proposal Image source: ArchDaily Extent of USACE proposal (NYECDC) 28 London, UK: Thames River Tide Barrier Using technology to control the tides 1750’ Image source: BBC News 2014 29 What Works for Coos Bay? Stillman p13 30 Defining the Problem Any response to levee-overtopping floods will likely be sufficient for stopping sea level rise at that point, but in Coos Bay, the problem extends to the stormwater system. The city cannot meaningfully address climate resilience without a focus on stormwater management in tandem with coastline management. 3 1 Status Quo Solution Highway 101 Coos Bay Rail Line Stormwater Vault Pumps out Runoff when Tides are High 32 Strengths Weaknesses - precedent designs & specialists for constructions - huge amounts of extraction and resources needed -”Status Quo” solution; people are familiar with these types of - particularly concrete and steel infrastructure already - must use pumps to move water - lacks resilience; if one part fails the entire thing fails Opportunities Threats - expand waterfront for pedestrian uses - maintaining location of HWY 101 and railroad take priority to functioning urban spaces - prioirtize protecting evacuation routes 33 Alternative 1: Stormwater Acupuncture .25 AF capture .5 AF capture Pre’s Mural Curts / Bayshore 34 Strengths Weaknesses - efficacy and function increase as more sites are modified - extra considerations to be made for connections to stormwater system - disperses capture load across multiple sites - doesn’t directly address concerns of urbanism and complete - passively capture up to a 20 year storm across the system streets Opportunities Threats - retrofit under-utilized or abandoned property in downtown - too little too late: - introduce green urbanism - responding one site at a time may be too slow - a large amount of sites are needed to capture the requisite storm 35 Alternative 2: Sponge Streets e into S wal unoff D rains Roof R Opportunity to Expand Business Frontage flow ain In er M rmw at hill Sto Up Excess Water Outflows Further Down Stormwater Line 36 Strengths Weaknesses - highly modular for urban design - sacrifices large amounts of constructed street - expand capacity through more construction - reduction in traffic capacity - provides vegetation and beauty throughout city - passively capture up to 20 year storm across the system Opportunities Threats - remove priority for cars in downtown area - very radical approach may not be liked by residents - lessen risk of traffic-pedestrian incidents - the city is already very car-dependent, does reducing streets make car dependency worse? - provide opportunities for new investments in Coos Bay 3 7 Goals - create an experimental design exploring passive capture of stormwater runoff for a downtown Coos Bay watershed - target 20 year storm (state policy) - Create visions of a more resilient downtown for SLR flooding - reduce presence of automobile - improve pedestrian access - introduce principles of green urbanism 38 0 250 500 1,000 US Feet DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Target Watershed 39 0 250 500 1,000 US Feet DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Context: Transportation & Culture 40 0 250 500 1,000 US Feet DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Context: Transportation & Culture Landmark 4 1 0 250 500 1,000 US Feet DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Topography +80’ 31’-80’ 11’-30’ 0-10’ 42 0 250 500 1,000 US Feet DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Topography & Zoning Industrial Commercial Residential Government 43 0 250 500 1,000 US Feet DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Urban Renewal 44 DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Topography & Stormwater 20 yr Storm Runoff: 22 AF 100 yr Storm Runoff: 31 AF 45 DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Storm Surge + SLR Projection Infrastructure at Risk: 6-8 miles of road 300+ buildings 200+ acres 46 DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Strategic Area of Focus 4 7 Cars and Street Space Main Pedestrian Entrance to Coos Bay Marina Illustration by Karl Jilg 48 Typical R.O.W. in Downtown Coos Bay 49 50 Early Sponge Street Concept 5 1 Sponge Streets 52 Trees Shrubs Grasses Coyote Brush Yarrow Tule Grass Sedge Oregon Wax Myrtle Foxglove Oregon Grape Rush Little Bluestem Scouler’s Willow Salal Oceanspray Fountain Grass 53 The Half Sponge Cross Slope Funnels Water into Swale Water Flows Through to Wider One-Way Streets Next Swale for Traffic Calming 54 Sub-Grade and Storage ~ 130 cubic feet stored per L.F. of Sponge Street 8’-0” 1 AF stored = 335 L.F. ~ 1.5 miles for 22 AF 55 56 DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Arterial vs Local Streets Arterial Local 5 7 DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Potential Sponge Streets Ex. Arterial Ex. Local Proposed Arterial Proposed Sponge 58 DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Sponge Streets Placements Proposal 1: Replace Highway 101 59 DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Sponge Streets Placements Proposal 2: Focus on Downtown 60 DOWNTOWN DISTRICT COOS BAY Sponge Streets Placements Proposal 3: Connect Landmarks 6 1 Cut for Time Floodable Plaza Design Collaborating with Re-Introducing Wetlands Sustainable Material Usage Leapfrog Designs (Source: ECOncrete) (Source: Leapfrog Designs) Stormwater Intervention Co-locating Green Energy Water Storage Re-Locating HWY 101 Framework for Coastal and Re-Use Stormwater Management 62 Acknowledgements Project Chair Special thanks to Michael Geffel Brad Stangeland & Mark Morgan Liska Chan, Mark Eischeid, David Buckley Borden, Ignacio Lopez Buson, Ben Shirtcliff, Jean Yang, Arica Duhrkoop-Galas, Harper Keeler, Nancy Silvers Chris Stillman Committee Members Rob Ribe Robert Melnick, Hannah Six, Noah Kerr The UO ASLA 2022-23 ExComm Kory Russel The UO MLA & BLA 2023 Cohorts The Overlook Field School 2022 Mike Ross, Gale Fulton, and Caley Shoemaker at the University of Tennessee My friends and family, who have supported this journey from thousands of miles away 63 THANK YOU 64 Script Transcription lead me down this road. - Designers are integral in creating visions of a future that works better for all of us; the built as well as the natural environment. - Our job is to inspire others to act, to highlight unseen processes and connections. Whether we like it or not, we are in a leadership position to - Hello everyone, my name is Peter Olson and I’m going to be addressing respond to climate change. solutions for sea level rise flooding in Coos Bay, OR. - across the globe, communities are reacting to sea level rise projections with a As the most densely populated community on the Oregon Coast, Coos Bay has more variety of interventions, ranging from battening down the hatches to keep infrastructure threatened than any other. Sea level rise projections change quickly, water out, learning to live with wet feet, or wholesale abandoning land for drier and lately have only been increasing. Currently, the Oregon Coast is projected to pastures. The Oregon Coast is the second-most productive economic region in experience about 6” in sea level rise by the end of this decade, 30” by 2050, and Oregon, only trailing behind the Portland Metro area. Our coastal towns must maybe as much as 6’ by the end of the century. Due to an aging stormwater system, prepare to respond to climate change, and if Coos Bay can’t be protected, who the problem isn’t as simple as water inching into the mainland. This project will will be? Oregon has been a leader in land-use planning and stormwater explore options for coastal management and propose methods for Coos Bay to management, and must further this work to protect the coast. respond to the threat of flooding before 2050. Via CNN May 23 2023 Via CBS News June 4 2023 - My interest in climate resilience began early on in my education, when my 8th - Climate change is here. There is no flinching from that. State Farm and AllState, grade science teacher, Mr. England felt it pressing that we watch Al Gore’s An two of the largest private insurance companies in the U.S., announced in the Inconvenient Truth to get a better understanding of the world we were growing past two weeks that they will no longer be offering new home policies in up in. Say what you will of Vice President Gore, but at the time I thought there California, citing risk from wildfires, flooding, and construction costs. If we read was no higher authority than the former VP of the United States. I would spend between the lines, these companies have decided climate change is too costly most of high school and early undergrad languishing about how I could be on for them to deal with. The west coast is experiencing a multitude of crises all at the front lines of addressing climate change. I didn’t want to just ring the alarm once, and private companies are seeking to protect their shareholders instead bells, I wanted to translate the data into meaningful action that would enable of their policy holders. others to survive, or better yet, thrive. - This design project is heavily built upon Chris Stillman’s 2019 master’s project - I received my degree in environmental studies from the university of on drivers of inundation in downtown Coos Bay, where she mapped the extent tennessee, and nearing my senior year I realized I had learned so many ways of SLR-related flooding in Coos Bay. This project seeks to offer a greener of analyzing all the problems of the world, but had few tools for actually solving alternative to traditional stormwater capture methods created in response to them. sea level rise for many cities. In exploring options for a masters project, I was - A chance encounter with some landscape architecture faculty at UT would most interested in the intersection of climate change resilience and stormwater 65 management. These issues will be some of the most prevalent ways for matter dropped into the bays is the size of clay and loam. This build-up of landscape architects to work in urban spaces in the next decades. sediment means that bays and estuaries are far more flat and prone to sea - We have all seen some form of these graphs. In 2023, it is no secret that the level flooding than other landscapes of the Oregon Coast. effects of climate change are being felt globally. While the intensity varies at different scales, we understand largely why and how this is happening. Simply, as the ambient atmospheric temperature rises, so does the ambient oceanic And like Coos Bay are expected to face life changing levels of flooding temperature. - Higher temperatures yield higher thermal expansion, increasing the volume of Many low-lying coastal towns use tide gates in tandem with their stormwater system. oceans, and higher temperatures also cause frozen water to melt, further Here we can see the major watersheds of Coos Bay and their corresponding tide increasing the volume. As scientists have warned for decades, this system can gates and stormlines. only resist so much change. We are starting to see the iceberg tip. Tide gates are used to prevent seawater from flooding the stormwater system. We’ll - Globally, about 40% of people live within 50 miles of an oceanic coast. A little get more into how they work in a minute. less than 4 billion people are directly in harm’s way when it comes to sea level This section reveals how most development takes place near the water, on former rise. marsh and wetlands. In the United States, this percentage is the same. About 40% of our population, And here we see just how flat downtown Coos Bay is. When we’re talking about or 86 million Americans, face existential threats to property and way of life by inches of sea level rise, it’s easy to see how these low-lying areas will be hit hard. the midpoint of this century. Already, rising seas are heavily impacting Atlantic Back to tide gates; tide gates use the pressure of tidal water to open and close. When coast cities like New York, Norfolk VA, and Miami FL. On the Pacific Coast, San the tide is low, the gate can open and runoff can flow out. Francisco and Seattle have started serious planning for calamitous change. - During high tide, the pressure of the outside water seals the gate shut, meaning - In Oregon, our coastline is known for its sublimity; expanses of rocky shoreline the runoff must be stored until the gate opens again. As sea levels rise, the and crashing waves, dense forests butting up to beaches and cliffsides. These amount of time between tide gate openings will get longer and longer, while harsh conditions make living and traveling difficult, and the passage S.B. 100 in the time water can be released to the bay will dwindle. This problem will only 1973 protects the coastline from much further development. Options to migrate get worse and worse as seas rise. people away from lowlands are limited. - In her 2019 master’s project, Chris Stillman explored the many factors that - The communities in Oregon that will be most impacted by SLR are typically downtown Coos Bay is facing and mapped out how much water will likely those sited on estuaries, where geologic systems have set the stage for human accumulate. A number of design scenarios were envisioned, from doing settlements. Inherently, estuaries are sites of deposition; as water flows into nothing for 100 years to responding to nuisance flooding yesterday. A pivotal bays and lagoons, so does the sediment carried down from the mountains and piece of her project was calculating the runoff that each tide gate releases. valleys. The smallest of particles travel the furthest, meaning that most of the Here we can see that the downtown district is made up of several sub-basins. 66 She also calculated projections for tide gate function. These graphs show us how where it may, and encourage it to move away from structures and more the towards historic floodplains. gates will be open for less and less time as sea level rises. In 2050, tidegates for - Deep in the city, it’s much harder to change zoning codes. One solution from sub Rotterdam is to use floodable infrastructure. The water plaza is a series of basins 3, 5 and 12 are projected to be open 50% less often sunken courtyards that can capture runoff during the rainy season, and function By 2100, these tidegates could be completely shut, leaving all low-lying areas at as public space during the dry. The majority of the plaza is still usable when the risk basins are full. of flooding. The areas in red are when the tide gates are closed. - After Hurricane Sandy struck the east coast in late 2012, NYC swung into full - Coos Bay is far from the only city experiencing more water than it’s built to gear trying to create plans to resist further effects of SLR. The ‘Rebuild by handle. In exploring solutions for this project, I looked toward large coastal Design’ competition spearheaded a number of proposals, such as SCAPE’s areas that are prioritizing the fight against climate change flooding and Living Breakwaters. In late 2022, the USACE published a proposal to protect land-water-use policies that prioritize the dynamics of moving water. the entire NYC harbor from sea level rise with $52 billion worth of walls, gates, - When looking at precedents for Coos Bay, I began with the large scale; and barriers. After the wildly creative proposals from the design competitions, looking at adaptive land use policies. the army corps’ seawall proposals were in stark contrast to the biophilic design - China is experiencing climate change induced water crises at both ends of the featured in the upper left. The property at risk in Manhattan is valued into the spectrum: mass droughts and mass floods trillions of dollars - what will it be worth if we can’t meaningfully protect it? - The Sponge City initiative was proposed by professor Lin Bingzhang in 2013, - London sought to completely engineer the solution to their tide problems with - the Ministry of Housing and Urban Development publishing a guide for a massive movable barrier at the mouth of the Thames This marvel of low-impact stormwater interventions for builders the very next year. engineering allows the city to control the tides around London. However, this - The concept behind sponge cities is to use the landscape elements of the city solution is incredibly expensive and relies on state of the art technology. It will to deal with water issues also be very unforgiving if it fails. With a blank check, Coos Bay could look at - Adapt the needs of the city around the conditions of the landscape bridging the mouth of the Coos Estuary. - It sounds simple but is really revolutionary to have such a huge amount of Stillman ended her project with suggestions of how Coos Bay might respond to the support towards retrofitting cities to be more spongy and work with flooding flooding threat. Typically, scenarios dealing with coastlines and waters of the United - As the saying goes, “God may have created the earth, but the Dutch created States are within the jurisdiction of the US ACE. Using an old USACE handbook on the Netherlands”. A particularly severe period of flooding in the 1990’s sparked coastal hazard mitigation, I predict that an engineer may use a combination of armoring an initiative to deal with flooding by changing zoning and land use laws to be structures and adapting to flooding through the use of storage tanks, likely in the form more adaptable to the fluctuations of rivers. Rather than trying to ‘technology’ of large concrete vaults. One might do an entire project covering what the best their way out of an unstoppable force, the intention is rather to let the water go combination of interventions would be, but that’s easily an entire year’s worth of 6 7 studios. A quick review thus far: - The Eco-Acupuncture approach is gaining popularity as a bottom-up approach - Coos bay is going to experience moderate to severe flooding to due sea level for dealing with sea level rise flooding. Stormwater acupuncture would entail rise strategically selecting a large number of small sites that serve as - The sea level rise will also reduce the efficacy of the stormwater system by micro-interventions at specific places. This strategy could be implemented with keeping the tide gates closed for longer and longer benefits to property owners, such as tax credits for runoff captured. - Meaning that any solution proposed must address the need to mitigate - Develop a number of strategically located different stormwater interventions to flooding when the tidegates are closed. All it will take is a bad storm during a reduce runoff during heavy rainfall events high tide to see downtown be ankle deep in water, if not worse. - Seek to revitalize under-performing sites such as: - A typical solution might look something like this. Reinforce the seawall/levee - Pre’s Mural Memorial and create a vault-and-pump system for dealing with excess runoff. The levee - The Coos Bay Visitor’s Center needs to be improved to protect the railroad and highway 101 during the largest - Time Bomb Thrift Store of events; king tides and tsunamis. - Mingus Skate Park This type of design is very resistant to flooding, meaning it can withstand a great barrage of water. But climate change is forcing us to adapt and be resilient; to be - Strength: Can built over time, multiple sites encourage resilience and resistance able to climate change to weather a huge storm and recover. Large walls and barriers do not encourage - If one fails the rest will not the - Weakness: not a typical response; tough to change minds about how the city - Strength: Ease of designing and placement, established precedents, specialists should look and function already familiar with construction - Opportunities: retrofit under-performing sites in the urban fabric with principles - Weakness: requires a large amount of resources, especially concrete and steel; of urbanism and aesthetics if part of the intervention fails the entire thing fails - Threats: Too little too late? Would need to really engineer these sites to ensure - Opportunity: expand waterfront for pedestrians, prioritize protecting evacuation they can capture a 20 year storm route (HWY 101) - Locate under-performing blocks/streets and excavate to create large wet - Threat: protecting the railroad and HWY 101 take priority over providing urban biodetention swales to hold stormwater while tidegates are closed space for residents - Use principles of Green urbanism and Complete Streets in designing - I believe that addressing flooding in Coos Bay should be looked at by - Pedestrian safety, accessibility, and usability landscape architects to address issues of livability, pedestrian access, and - Wider sidewalks, public seating, more pedestrian visibility sustainability alongside functioning infrastructure. - Multi-vehicular traffic; de-prioritizing cars; traffic calming 68 - Green infrastructure used extensively to create cohesion between built - Re-imagine a coastal downtown for climate resilience and green urbanism and natural environment - Coos Bay is very car-oriented - Create urban setting that is more safe and accessible for pedestrians - Aging population needs more pedestrian access to engage in - Over half of Coos Bay residents are under 16 and over 65; these are downtown groups that should be protected from excessive vehicular traffic - I chose tidegate 3 because, according to Stillman, it will have a 50% reduction - Introduce vegetation for shade and urban heat island reduction in “open” hours by 2050; from being open about 14 hours per day to less than - Allow business to expand into sidewalk - 8 hours per day. There are also several charismatic, at-risk sites in this - Re-route runoff from streets and roofs into swales sub-basin that could participate in a city-wide retrofit. The Coos Bay Urban - Planting Choices imported from Portland Stormwater Design manual & Florence Renewal Program has designated a significant portion of the downtown area as Stormwater design manual eligible for funding towards revitalization. This could be instrumental in - A block could ostensibly store about ¾ a-f before letting hitting the outflow retrofitting the downtown core - Need more storage? Excavate instead of building concrete vaults The watershed is about 500 acres in area, encompassing most of the downtown - City could set a goal to try and capture an additional acre-foot of runoff district of Coos Bay each year Here we can see how highway 101 pierces right through the downtown core of the - Strengths: Modular, easy to expand capacity; resilient to climate change and city. When the highway was first constructed in the 1920’s, it was a boon for small increasing runoff, provides vegetation and beauty to downtown, introduces coastal towns like Coos Bay to have travellers arrive in the heart of town so readily. new ways of approaching urban runoff Today, the 101 is mainly used as a thoroughfare for residents more so than a scenic - Weaknesses: would be a huge change to structure of downtown coos bay and route for tourists. This car-oriented infrastructure makes being a pedestrian in Coos might face significant dissent; rerouting HWY 101 may be a more significant Bay much less fun. challenge than I anticipate; street swales may encourage pranks or litter and Highway 101 also shuttles people away from important landmarks in the downtown become a maintenance issue; plants need to be safe for consumption district, like Mingus Park and the Coos Art Museum. - Opportunities: remove focus on cars in downtown, remove danger of high The downtown district is very low lying. Most of it is less than 10’ above sea level traffic in pedestrian areas The city planned for this, placing mainly industrial and commercial zones along the - Create an alternative to a typical “gray” intervention for a watershed in waterfront. downtown Coos Bay with a focus on combining stormwater infrastructure with In recent years, the city has recognized that this part of downtown needs some public space beautification and created the Urban Renewal Program. Properties within the urban - The popular Portland Stormwater guide recommends facilities that are renewal district are eligible for up to $25,000 towards revitalizing their property. designed for 20 year storms ANd here we see a close up on the stormwater system. This area is mainly served by - This is also consistent with Oregon stormwater policies tidegate 3. 69 Here we see the extent of sea level rise flooding in the downtown district. No city model is better suited to mixed use areas where vehicles are still necessary. on A full sponge street could ostensibly capture about 130 cubic feet of water per linear the coast has as much infrastructure at stake as Coos Bay foot. To reach one acre foot of storage, a single sponge street would need to be 335 When we combine these factors: the watershed, urban renewal, and sea level feet, about one and a half blocks of a Coos Bay right of way. rise With about 1.5 miles of streets, Coos Bay could confidently capture a 20 year storm flooding, an area of focus appears. while reducing the impact of sea level rise flooding and introducing principles of green This comic by Karl Jilg demonstrates how car-oriented streets feel to pedestrians. urbanism. Over 6 miles of streets are going to be regularly flooded in the next 25 Next to it is the main pedestrian entrance to the Coos Bay Boardwalk and Marina, years; why not deal with that in a more productive way? where pedestrians must cross Highway 101 twice to get to the waterfront. I know you’re all asking this big question next. Okay, but how do you decide what The typical R.O.W. in Coos Bay is 60’ wide, with 5’ sidewalks on either end. 5/6th streets to remove and which ones to keep? Here we can see arterial streets and local of streets in downtown. With highway 101 right in the splash zone, we should priopritze the space is dedicated to veghicles relocating it to preserve an evacuation route. And again we arrive at the intersection of urban design and multifunctional Our area of focus reveals about 3.5 miles of streets that are in the right location to be infrastructure. spongy. Which leads me to sponge streets. Sponge streets are wet biodetention swales. And getting to 22 acre feet only requires 1.5 miles. This could be an integral part of Meaning theyre meant to have saturated soil most of the time, and capture revitalizing downtown and investing in a more resilient future. In my ideal world I stormwater while the tide gates are closed. SPonge streets work similarly to eco would try to replace highway 101 and move it away from the downtown core of the acupuncture, but are targeted at enhancing pedestrian life in the city. A sponge city as well as the splash zone. This proved to be very challenging, however. street Another way to reach the 20 year storm capture could be to create a loop around is simply a street that is capturing water in some capacity. downtown and connect to the waterfront. These sponge streets are very flexible. They can be used to maximize frontage Or create a walking trail through Coos Bay and take advantage of how pleasant a space thriving coastal town can be for businesses, introduce vegetation and reduce the urban heat island effect, and I learned so much about myself and the process of my own work during this project. I make downtown Cos Bay more pleasant for pedestrian life. came up with many ideas that I did not have the capacity to explore in a meaningful The plants used are adapted from the Portland and Florence stormwater guides. way. If I could go back in time with what I know now, I would do so many things These are all natives that can tolerate drought, heat, and inundation. After differently, like getting out to Coos Bay more often and trying to understand the establishment they should thrive in the conditions of downtown. perspective of the people living there and how they would want to move forward. This Sponge streets can be formatted depending on the needs of the site. The half design project was very focused on radically bringing green urbanism to coos bay in sponge the form of stormwater management, but I think it could on to do so much more. 70 We will do nothing alone as landscape architects. I learned how little an individual can accomplish in terms of fighting global climate change and providing a better future. I owe a huge thank you to Michael Geffel, Kory Russel, and Rob Ribe, who helped me work through many, many ideas Thanks to Brad Stangeland and Mark Morgan, my colleagues at Stangeland & Associates A special thank you to Liska Chan, Ben Shirtcliff, and Jean Yang, who all helped me bring together my life throughout grad school Thank you to the CLRG team, who keeps me endlessly inspired to work towards a better world Thank you to my ASLA executive committee who helped me juggle this project with my presidential responsibilities Thank you to my cohort and to the other students in this department. It has been a pleasure and an honor to spend the last 3 years rigorously working at this degree. 7 1 Works Cited Al, S. (2018). Adapting Cities to Sea Level Rise: green and gray strategies. Washington, DC: Island Press. Campbell, M. (2022) EuroNews.Green. China’s sponge cities are a ‘revolutionary rethink’ to stop flooding. https://www.euronews.com/green/2022/10/22/china-s-sponge-cities-are-a-revo- lutionary-rethink-to-prevent-flooding CIty of Portland Public WOrks (2020) City of Portland Stormwater Management Manual. Portland.gov Dalton, M.M., Dello, K.D., Hawkins, L., Mote, P.W. & Rupp, D.E. (2017). The Third Oregon Climate Assessment Report, Oregon Climate Change Research Institute, College of Earth, Ocean and Atmospheric Sciences, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR. Dutch Water Sector (2019) Room for the River Programme, Dutch Water Sector https://www.dutchwatersector.com/news/room-for-the-river-programme Kennen K. & Kirkwood N. (2015). 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(2017) Toward an Urban Ecology. Monacelli Press Robbins, W. G. (2006). Hard Times in Paradise: Coos Bay, Oregon. University of Washington Press. United States. Army. Corps of Engineers. Coastal Enginneering Task Force. (2002) Coastal Engineering Manual Parts II - V Washington, D.C. : [Springfield, VA :] :Headquarters, U.S. Army Corps of Engineers 7 2