Internal Spatio-temporal Dynamics of Greenspaces Influence Connectivity
to Urban Landscapes
Abstract
Simultaneous pressures of climate change and increasing populations in
urban areas have resulted in new stresses on stormwater infrastructure.
Altered precipitation patterns require robust and versatile management
strategies for stormwater, resulting in increased consideration of
greenspace as infrastructure for communities with significant flood
risk. There is particular interest in natural, minimally-engineered
green infrastructure (GI). Such greenspaces can be heterogeneous and
difficult to characterize but are often straightforwardly modelled as
black-box systems within a landscape. Many natural sites cannot be
approached so simply due to highly permeable interfaces with surrounding
landscapes and it is often impossible to monitor the surrounds at
anywhere near the same spatial or temporal resolution as within the
boundaries of a study site, resulting in uncertainty about the actual
benefit of natural greenspace for adjacent communities. We explored
water storage in an urban green space, identifying spatio-temporal
patterns of internal dynamics to holistically understand site behavior.
A dense sensor network in a prairie wetland nature preserve within the
Chicago metro area produced 4+ years of high-resolution surface and
subsurface water level, soil moisture, precipitation, and air and water
temperature data. Responses to weather events in the short term and to
climate-driven seasonal effects in the longer term are then described
via the combination of GIS methods and signal processing approaches.
Power spectral and cross-correlation analyses contribute understanding
of relevant timescales for further investigation. Applying hydrograph
analysis methods to water level time series yields important statistics
about the response of water table elevations throughout the prairie
complex, including baseflow elevations and relaxation times. These
statistics are used to develop spatial maps of event response as a
function of site properties and to identify seasonal effects.
Understanding the expected response of stormwater storage in a natural
greenspace to a precipitation event has valuable utility for
conservation groups and stormwater management utilities. The synthesis
of these methods contribute to development of planning tools for siting,
design, and management of GI.