Sector Summary
Buildings, Cities & Infrastructure
Photo: Jason Wilkinson
Many of the challenges facing Puget Sound’s water originate from urban built environments and infrastructure. Cities, roads, and other infrastructure, include large areas of hardscape with poor infiltration, are a huge source of polluted runoff, and act as heat islands that affect natural temperature and water cycles. Linear thinking, lack of creativity and social inequity has resulted in urban environments that degrade our region’s water through groundwater depletion, untreated runoff, releases of recent and legacy pollutants and overburdened sewage treatment systems.
The good news is we’re starting to reimagine how our buildings, cities and urban infrastructure can function. This regenerative approach to design and planning seeks to mimic the environmental services of predevelopment landscapes, including the benefits of the natural hydrologic cycle. Ultimately, the goal is to have our cities provide the same ecosystem services for water retention and filtration as the old growth Western Red Cedar forests that once occupied Puget Sound’s watersheds.
Solutions in This Sector
Advanced Wastewater Treatment (at Centralized Plants)
Affordable Workforce Housing
Blue-Green Streets & Roadside Bioswales
Clean Preservatives for Utility Poles & Pilings
Decentralized Water Systems
Depave
Green Roofs, Facades & Walls
Green, Clean Bridges & Elevated Highways
Grey Infrastructure for Combined Sewage Overflow Control
Low-Flow Bathroom Fixtures
Native Plants & Ecological Lawns
Neighborhood Scale Stormwater Facilities
Pipeline & Outfall Cleaning
Pipelining for Leak Elimination
Rainwater Harvesting
Recycled Water
Site Sustainability Certification
Street Sweeping
Urban Greening & Tree Canopy
Urban RV Pump-Out Facilities
Urban Soil Building
Wastewater Treatment Wetlands
Waterless Bathroom Fixtures
Join Us
Together, we will find ways to solve chronic challenges, decrease the cost of project delivery, and incentivize mainstream adoption. There is massive untapped potential to design new tools for problems that natural resource managers face daily.
We invite you to join us in identifying solutions and promising new technologies.