Umstead+Forested+Rain+Garden

Amy Huang | 2A

=Summary=

On May 12th, 2018, I volunteered at Umstead State Park to stabilize these rocky slopes in the parking lot with larger, flatter stones in order to keep the soil underneath in place. Originally, the slopes were lined with smaller, round rocks. I was told that when it rains, some of these round rocks roll down the slope and don't stay in place. They are very unstable and when they roll off, the soil underneath erodes and stormwater runoff slides down the slope as well. This is not good as we want to prevent erosion and runoff as much as possible. So in order to do so, we implemented an "innovative side slope holder to help keep the rocks in place." That means that we got rid of all the round rocks, then dusted off the tarp underneath, then pulled the tarp up and hammered it into the ground to hold it in place, then organized large, flat rocks mosaically on top of the tarp with as few gaps as possible in between the rocks. The lady who instructed us, (Jeanne? Jeane? Jean? Gene?), told us that doing all this was actually much more difficult than it seemed -- and she was right; it was super hard, took super long, and not only that, but it was super hot outside and heat exhaustion quickly descended upon me. I became dizzy, developed a bad headache, and continued feeling sick even into the next day. As a person who's prone to heat stroke, this kind of weather is obviously my favourite.

The pictures you see below are of the area that I worked on for 2 long hours before finishing.



=Relation to APES=

This relates to APES because we learned about erosion and runoff, their side effects, and why we should prevent them. The environmental benefits that our volunteer service gave were " reduced runoff volume and intensity of stormwater runoff (as well as treatment of sediment and nutrient pollutants) due to the infiltration into special soil media and plants installed in the medians." Also, the shade of the trees in the parking lot would reduce the temperature of stormwater and reduce the thermal impact to the downgradient streams in the park.



=Conclusion=

I learned that not only is preventing erosion important, but also that I'm not very good at mosaics.

Also, we need to end global warming because it's only spring and I'm scared how hot summer will be if this is how hot it is now.