UGA’s Green Infrastructure Plan: Student Envisioned Plans to Improve Ecosystem Services on Campus

Abstract

Graduate students from the “Nature and Sustainability” studio course at UGA’s College of Environment and Design created Green Infrastructure Plans for UGA’s Campus. Objectives of this service learning project included gathering inventory information, analyzing existing conditions, garnering stakeholder input and crafting plans at two scales. Students individually prepared campus wide plans, and then created site plans for a specific area. These proposed interventions were based on creating or enhancing a network of linkages and hubs (corridors and patches), otherwise known as Green Infrastructure, which supports ecosystem services such as water and nutrient cycling. Unfortunately, legacy land use and substantial impermeable area on campus hinders ecosystem function. In order to reverse these trends to approach a more sustainable trajectory, students sought to preserve, enhance and/or restore critical ecosystem services. This planning process may inform future planning efforts undertaken by the Office of University Architects to improve the green infrastructure of campus and further sustainability goals.