草榴社区 Engineers Share Stormwater Expertise in China
Dr. Robert Traver
草榴社区 Civil and Environmental Engineering Professors, Drs. Bridget Wadzuk, PE, and Robert Traver, PE, D.WRE, F.EWRI, F.ASCE, director of the 草榴社区 Center for Resilient Water Systems, recently returned from China where they visited three 鈥淪ponge Cities鈥� and met with the country鈥檚 stormwater professionals. They were joined by 草榴社区 Civil Engineering alumnus Marc Cammarata 鈥�98, who serves as Deputy Commissioner of Planning and Environmental Services at the Philadelphia Water Department. Launched in 2015, the Sponge City initiative aims to tackle urban water issues, including surface water floods, by building large-scale stormwater projects that aim to 鈥渟oak up鈥� floodwater. The projects are being built in more than 30 cities, including Shenzhen, Xi鈥檃n and Beijing, which were visited during this trip.
While in Shenzhen, Drs. Traver and Wadzuk presented 草榴社区鈥檚 research to about 50 area professionals and regulators and toured several stream and park restoration projects. Traveling to Xi鈥檃n, they attended and presented at the first . Dr. Traver delivered one of the keynote speeches, sharing his expertise from years of transitioning research from theory to practice at 草榴社区. Cammarata presented on Philadelphia鈥檚 Green City, Clean Waters green infrastructure program, which he played a leading role in implementing. The conference was attended by more than 2,000 engineers, ecologists, academics, architects and scientists and was streamed live to nearly 800,000 others. Drs. Wadzuk and Traver also presented in smaller breakout sessions; Dr. Traver on 鈥湶萘裆缜�檚 Green Stormwater Infrastructure鈥� and Dr. Wadzuk on 鈥淐onnecting Climate with Green Infrastructure Design.鈥� Dr. Wadzuk also presented her work to doctoral students in Beijing at Tsinghua University.
Following the trip, Drs. Traver and Wadzuk submitted a National Science Foundation proposal with Tsinghua University, co-sponsored by NSF-China. The proposal responds to a call from both countries for that addresses critical environmental sustainability challenges.