Posted: October 11, 2023
Invisible Infrastructure: Learning about stormwater from a Youth Water Leader!
Urban flooding affects us all. Youth Water Leader Lyndsay sheds light on this topic with her service project, a guide that explores urban stormwater management.
This past year, one Youth Water Leader, Lyndsay, has been hard at work developing an educational resource all about stormwater. Lyndsay joined the Youth Water Leaders Program in 2021-2022 and stayed on to complete her project this year. She has since demonstrated an incredible dedication to the Ottawa River and has spent over 180 hours learning about the watershed and volunteering for the program! Lyndsay took an interest in stormwater after noticing some of the interesting ways flooding was managed in her neighbourhood.
Stormwater is the runoff from precipitation that can pose a big challenge in urban settings with large paved and impermeable surfaces. In these areas, fast-moving stormwater can cause flooding, erosion, and wash pollutants into local waterways. However, there’s a good chance that the infrastructure municipalities use to manage and divert stormwater is something of a mystery to you. If that’s the case, then this guide, which features several original illustrations by Lynday’s friend Tanner Emslie, will serve as a fascinating glimpse into the invisible infrastructure around your city.
We all want to help protect our rivers, and one important way we can do that is through being conscientious of stormwater. In this guide, Lyndsay also offers some great tips for individuals to reduce their footprint on rivers, like planting a rain garden!
We’re grateful for Lyndsay’s efforts in creating this fantastic resource, and hope you’ll find it both as informative and helpful as we did! This guide is also great for educators who are interested in borrowing Ottawa Riverkeeper’s stormwater model from our Learning Library.
The Youth Water Leaders Program is funded by the Canada Service Corps, a national movement that empowers youth aged 15–30 to gain experience and build important skills while giving back to their community.
Learn more at Canada.ca/CanadaServiceCorps.
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