Reducing Building Water Use Intensity (WUI): Tools for Academia and Practice

Recent prolonged droughts have increased water awareness worldwide, yet limited progress has been made to expand integrated building solutions. This paper investigates the critical tools needed by architectural practice and academia to support water efficient pedagogy and design. A water auditing protocol was developed, tested, and standardized during an undergraduate/graduate architecture water efficiency course over 2017-19. This paper presents the case study implementation of this tool for water use reduction in a commercial building in Tucson, Arizona. The paper ultimately evaluates the success of this new tool through four outcomes from the case study. First, a cutting-edge, service-learning pedagogical model was developed to teach water efficient design to architecture students. Second, the local water service provider was given a new tool for future commercial building owner compliance in the case of a Level 2 Drought declaration. Third, the water audit provided the building owner with cost- effective strategies to accomplish use reduction. Finally, the architectural professional community received a new tool for water efficient design and retrofit. The paper presents a tool for architecture students and professionals to expand integrated water efficient design for commercial buildings

Apraxia of Speech: Change in Error Consistency Following a Multimodal intensive Treatment (MMiT)

Historically, error inconsistency has been considered a defining feature of AOS. While recent studies have demonstrated consistency of certain errors over time, changes following intervention have not been reported. Therefore, we examined error consistency across successive repetitions of the same utterance following 120 hours of Multimodal intensive Treatment (MMiT). Three males with AOS and aphasia produced three repetitions of 10 target words before and after treatment. SLP evaluations of transcribed responses revealed increased consistency of error location across all participants and increased consistency in error number across successive responses. Further investigation of MMiT in relation to these findings is warranted

Four Modes of Engagement: Positioning University Urban Design and Research Centers for the Future

University urban design and research centers, which link academic pedagogy and research activities to real-world projects, have grown in number over the last several decades. As the rate of urbanization accelerates and universities’ missions become increasingly grounded in visible impact and financial self-sufficiency, these centers continue to offer an important and appealing model. This paper looks at the evolution of these centers from their beginnings in the 1950s, advancement in the 1980s, resurgence in the first decade of the 2000s, and current growing status. From a survey of over fifty centers throughout the United States, a typology is established based on the dominant activity of each center: Advocate, Consultant, Educator, and Scholar. Case studies from each mode are examined at greater depth. Overall, this paper finds continued growth in the number of these centers and a recent broadening of involvement by a diversity of academic and professional disciplines. Given this expansion, this paper is a tool for emerging centers to frame their missions within an established typology and gain best practices. Across all modes, universal challenges include: sustained funding, administrative support, and clarifying student and community roles. As both universities and cities face new paradigms of growth and financial sustenance, models of the university urban design and research center will hold relevance as a vehicle to engage, articulate, and find solutions to the challenges within our multilayered communities

Four Modes of Engagement: Positioning University Urban Design and Research Centers for the Future

University urban design and research centers, which link academic pedagogy and research activities to real-world projects, have grown in number over the last several decades. As the rate of urbanization accelerates and universities’ missions become increasingly grounded in visible impact and financial self-sufficiency, these centers continue to offer an important and appealing model. This paper looks at the evolution of these centers from their beginnings in the 1950s, advancement in the 1980s, resurgence in the first decade of the 2000s, and current growing status. From a survey of over fifty centers throughout the United States, a typology is established based on the dominant activity of each center: Advocate, Consultant, Educator, and Scholar. Case studies from each mode are examined at greater depth. Overall, this paper finds continued growth in the number of these centers and a recent broadening of involvement by a diversity of academic and professional disciplines. Given this expansion, this paper is a tool for emerging centers to frame their missions within an established typology and gain best practices. Across all modes, universal challenges include: sustained funding, administrative support, and clarifying student and community roles. As both universities and cities face new paradigms of growth and financial sustenance, models of the university urban design and research center will hold relevance as a vehicle to engage, articulate, and find solutions to the challenges within our multilayered communities

Urban Transportation System Flood Vulnerability Assessment with Special Reference to Low Income and Minority Neighborhoods

A flood vulnerability assessment of the City of Tucson, Arizona’s transportation systems was conducted with special reference to low-income and minority neighborhoods. Short-term flooding from extreme storm events pose a serious challenge to transportation system reliability and emergency response in cities across the United States. This problem, which is anticipated to grow over the next century due to climate change, is often hardest on vulnerable populations, including low-income and minority neighborhoods. Our work aimed to advance national research methods for assessing multi-modal transportation degradation due to flooding. We identified priority locations for Tucson to make transportation improvement investments for the purpose of mitigating urban transportation system flooding. This included increasing equitable accessibility to the multi-modal transportation network across three modes: vehicular, bicycle, and public transportation via pedestrian access to bus stops. As a case study, our proposal has national flood hazard transportation vulnerability and equity implications. The project had three stages. In Stage 1 we estimated flood conditions based on a 5-year, 1-hour storm event with FLO-2D and a digital elevation model (DEM) constructed using LiDAR data. In Stage 2 we analyzed neighborhood transportation vulnerability based on overall transportation system performance and use across the three transportation networks. In Stage 3, we performed thirty (the top ten sites for the three modes of transportation) green infrastructure (GI) scenario analyses to determine the impact that GI implementations could have on the multimodal system. Of the thirty areas studied, 93% were part of census tracts with median household incomes below the Tucson average. We found that GI implementation performs most effectively to increase multi-modal access when implemented in moderate flooding conditions. In extreme cases, comprehensive, neighborhood-scale GI implementation did not result in creating greater accessibility during flood events. Rather than municipalities selecting areas for GI implementation that have the highest volumes of flooding or citizen complaints, GI implementation funds may be invested in moderate flooded area for greatest improvement of multimodal access. Future research will assess impact across time durations (rather than simple peak event calculations) and work to optimize GI implementation across multiple benefits for multiple modes of transportation (rather than individual modes). We plan to communicate our findings broadly. This research is a proof of concept for a larger, long-term project to advance national research methods to reduce the impact of chronic flooding on the multi-modal transportation network. Additional funding from NITC and other sources is currently being targeted

The Potential of Green Infrastructure in Mitigating Flood Impacts on the Mobility of Low Income and Minority Neighborhoods

Short-term flooding from extreme storm events poses a serious transportation challenge in U.S. cities. This problem—which is anticipated to grow over the next century with our global climate crisis—is often hardest on vulnerable populations, including low-income and minority neighborhoods. This project advances national research methods for assessing flood vulnerability and prioritizing transportation improvement investments to ensure that no community is left stranded when the next flood occurs

Advancing a Net Zero Urban Water Future in the United States Southwest: Governance and Policy Challenges and Future Needs

The Colorado River supplies >40 million people in the United States Southwest with their daily water supply and is unable to meet the current demands. New approaches are needed to enhance sustainability and resilience. A net zero urban water (NZUW) approach meets the needs of a given community with a locally available and sustainable water supply, without detriment to interconnected systems and the long-term water supply. Transitioning to a NZUW future will require considerable modifications to governance and policy across the Southwest and its cities specifically. We identify five areas of governance and policy challenges: diversified water sources and sinks; planning, design, and operation; monitoring and enforcement; coordination; and addressing equity and justice. Four case study cities are investigated: Albuquerque, Denver, Los Angeles, and Tucson. Across these cities, the policy priorities include supporting potable water reuse, coordinating policies across jurisdictions for alternative water sources, addressing equity and justice, developing and incentivizing water conservation plans, and making aquifer storage and recovery projects easier and more economical to pursue. We conclude that a NZUW transition in the Southwest faces considerable governance and policy challenges, but moving cities toward this goal is crucial