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Contents: Purpose | Sustainability Goals | Project Benefits | Metrics | Additionality or Marginal Benefit | Cost Savings | Imagery
Beginning in July 2009 we have been constructing a native plant nursery and garden between Giannini Hall and Wellman Court to support the restoration of Strawberry Creek. Our project is driven by four purposes: to maintain a seed stock for restoring the creek’s riparian zone with native plants, to preserve species endemic to Strawberry Creek, whose existence are threatened by the spread of invasive species, to provide ecosystem services to the campus landscape, and to serve as an effective site for environmental education. The TGIF funds will be used to purchase capital equipment and to support a work-study student for one year to oversee project development.
Physically, the project is composed of an outdoor nursery of seedlings, a demonstration garden of native plants designed to attract local pollinators, and signage illustrating plant species and project motivation to community members. We envision an architecturally integrated garden with curvilinear walking paths that separate raised beds of native species. Onlookers will be encouraged to visit the Strawberry Creek riparian zone, where they can compare exotic and rehabilitated regions.
Our project recognizes the importance of maintaining biodiversity on campus, and promotes native plants – which require fewer external resources (e.g., water) to thrive than do commonly planted vegetation – and pollinators, whose numbers are in decline. A native garden and nursery creates a home base for repopulating the Strawberry Creek watershed with its original vegetation, and establishes a site to educate students, faculty, and staff about native species. We hope to inspire viewers to start their own native gardens and preserve endemic species. Replanting the riparian zone also provides ecosystem services, including pollination, reduced runoff, and maintenance of native symbionts (e.g., mycorrhizae, seed dispersers, herbivores).
This project supports and significantly expands the EH&S Strawberry Creek Management Plan of 1987, which aims to combat pollution and preserve the natural habitat of the creek area. The creek’s importance derives from its use as an outdoor classroom, a recreational area, and a sanctuary for plants and animals. EH&S oversees a volunteer restoration program which will transfer the natives grown in our garden to the creek’s riparian zone.
The project benefits the campus and students in four tangible ways: by further beautifying the campus and providing a site of education and retreat, by contributing to a more biodiverse watershed, by providing ecosystem services to the campus (e.g., increasing water detention in the watershed and thus reducing the need for watering), and by providing educational opportunities to passers-by, volunteers, and interns. The creation of an accessible garden (on campus) will make volunteering and visiting a viable option for time-constrained campus members.
We will measure the number of species successfully planted (both at the garden and near the creek), the number of pollinators frequenting our garden, the area of riparian land converted and restored to native species and the as well as creek runoff volume and turbidity near replanting sites. The educational component of the project will be measured in volunteer-hours, in number of views of the demonstration garden and its signage, and the number of courses that incorporate the garden’s activities in lesson plans.
An essential component of our project is monitoring and evaluation, carried out with the support of ESW under the leadership of the project team and one work-study student for the first year and two unpaid undergraduate interns after that (in Landscape Architecture, Art, Environmental Science, Biology, Engineering, or any related discipline). We will conduct monthly measurements of the sustainability indicators listed above. As we raise seedlings in the nursery and replant native species in the watershed, we will continue through monitoring efforts to prevent the replanted areas from reverting to exotic vegetation. Continued data collection will guide the restoration project to target regions more prone to ecological regression.
Our project greatly enhances the ongoing native restoration effort by the Strawberry Creek Fund by filling a niche unsupported by traditional landscape maintenance—the propagation and growth of species native to the Strawberry Creek watershed. No such nursery or on-campus natives garden now exists.
If your project involves doing something that UC Berkeley does anyway (meeting minimal green building standards or basic environmental regulations), how does your project go above and beyond these minimal requirements?
Our project’s goal to restore an ecosystem is a significantly greater step towards local landscape sustainability than current practices regarding Strawberry Creek. Our project hopes to bring plant propagation techniques from the Berkeley Botanical Garden to the campus, where the outputs can be enjoyed by a greater student audience. Currently, the creek restoration efforts are largely limited to reparation and weeding; we are expanding the project to include a source of new native plants for planting throughout the watershed.
While we expect that our project will have indirect economic effects through the general beautification and environmental legitimization of the Berkeley campus (such as through alumni support, ecological tourism, local nursery expenditures, etc.), we also expect small gains from water quality improvement in the creek and reduction of high flows. These improvements may reduce the need for future clean-up. The value of maintaining biodiversity and the provision of ecosystem services are not easily quantified, but are undeniably significant.
Strawberry Creek Garden Image Galleries:
©2010 Engineers for a Sustainable World, Berkeley Engineers Without Borders
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