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Prairie Eco Services (Project EDDIE)

Author(s): Kelly Knight

Houston Community College

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Summary:
As densely populated urban areas continue to expand, human activity is removing much-needed greenspaces from our communities; in turn, we are also removing critical buffers that are needed to combat air and water pollution, leaving cities vulnerable…

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As densely populated urban areas continue to expand, human activity is removing much-needed greenspaces from our communities; in turn, we are also removing critical buffers that are needed to combat air and water pollution, leaving cities vulnerable to a variety of health issues and potential infrastructure damage. In August of 2017, the Greater Houston area experienced a catastrophic flooding event, with Hurricane Harvey being designated as the wettest tropical cyclone ever recorded in US history. With many areas receiving 40" or more of rain, the rising flood waters had nowhere to go in a city covered in concrete, a barrier to natural infiltration. This caused over $125 billion in damage, with flood waters inundating hundreds of thousands of homes and displacing more than 30,000 people. In 2018, Katy High School responded by restoring an acre of public campus property to native Texas Gulf Coast prairie. The prairie will ultimately serve as an outdoor classroom for students, a greenspace for community outreach, and also as a natural retention area for future flooding events. Urban greenspaces, like the KHS Tiger Prairie, are mini-ecosystems that can potentially mitigate billions o

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Version 1.0 - published on 11 Apr 2022 doi:10.25334/56MR-7G81 - cite this

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