On October 4th, the Land and Water iCAP team met to make final edits on the Campus Sustainability Celebration slides, review the Campus Landscape Master Plan, and discuss regenerative agriculture research on the South Farms.
Meeting minutes are attached.
Biodiversity Plan intern Gabriel Harper-Hagen is looking for students and student groups to help him develop two iNaturalist surveys for the project. Here is the detailed explanation from Gabe:
The survey will act as a pilot for future surveying around campus and the broader community. We will have two surveys: one focused on animals and one focused on plants. This is because of the different methods of surveying each. The surveys will benefit from as many students that would be interested in this for either one (Or both). The survey will attempt to efficiently gather data about the diversity of plant and animal species found on campus to create a baseline for what is present and to help identify gaps on the campus where diversity may be lacking. If successful, I hope to expand the model to other parts of the community including the park districts to have larger community based BioBlitz seasonally to keep track of the diversity in the area and measure success of the biodiversity plan.
As far as students can help, we need enough people to survey the area efficiently in a reasonable amount of time. The student groups and individual students would be helping in an initial survey that focuses only on the campus. My thought is that a date will be set for each of the two surveys where the participants can join to go over brief instructions on identifying plants with iNaturalist, adding them to the project, and explaining the purpose of surveying. iNaturalist allows for specific project data to be collected within a region which is then peer reviewed. Ideally, there will be some experts (students or professors if appropriate) that join for each survey to help with logistics and identification. I hope this will not only be a useful database for our campus to utilize, but also a fun learning experience.
All iCAP students and environmental student groups are encouraged to participate. If interested, please email Gabe (harperh2@illinois.edu) and Resilience iCAP Team clerk Asli Topuzlu (aslit2@illinois.edu).
On September 16th, the Land & Water iCAP team met to identify projects that need to be wrapped up, review the key priorities document, and discuss recommendations to be completed in the short term.
Meeting minutes are attached.
The following email was sent to the iCAP Teams:
Hello iCAP Teams,
Thank you again for serving on these important campus sustainability committees, and for your commitment to helping the university achieve the objectives in the Illinois Climate Action Plan. As promised in the charge letters you received, we are attaching the Key Priorities Document here. The attached document includes a section for each iCAP Team, with two parts in each section: Priority areas and in progress iCAP Portal projects.
In order to help our campus move from STARS Gold to STARS Platinum, we have identified priority areas where our university can potentially improve. iSEE’s summer intern Tyler evaluated the latest UIUC STARS report and identified example case studies from STARS Platinum schools. Tyler’s report is online at “Report on Improving UIUC STARS Score.” The priority areas also include topics for potential recommendations that have been brought up in previous discussions with the campus sustainability teams. One example of this is the current efforts to reduce plastic waste on campus.
Many prior iCAP team members have expressed a desire for guidance on appropriate topics for recommendations, so we are providing this guidance to assist your team with focus areas for development of recommendations. We encourage you to investigate these ideas with gusto; reach out to people at other schools to learn more about the ideas and contact people on our campus who would have a stake in the project (“stakeholders”) to understand how it could fit into our campus. You should also review the recommendation template to see the information that needs to be completed when you submit a recommendation to the iCAP Working Group.
The iCAP Portal has over 900 projects and contains information about our campus sustainability efforts, going back as far as 2003. The information is primarily entered by members of the iCAP Teams, the Student Sustainability Committee (SSC), and a few volunteers. We are requesting your assistance to get updates on some of the projects that are listed as “In Progress.” For each of the projects listed in the attached file, please answer the following questions:
We are very excited about this coming year, and we want to support you in any way necessary. Please reach out to any of us at any time.
Thank you,
Morgan, Jen, and Meredith
iSEE Director, Madhu Khanna, sent out the seven iCAP Team charge letters for the 2022-2023 academic year (attached).
"Thank you once again for your service in helping to make the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign a more sustainable campus. Attached is your charge letter for the 2022-2023 academic year with an outline of your campus sustainability duties as part of the iCAP Team. We look forward to your positive and impactful contributions."
Education iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Energy iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Engagement iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Land and Water iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Transportation iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Zero Waste iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdf Resilience iCAP Team Charge Letter 2022-23.pdfThe iCAP Teams and iCAP Working Group gathered for the annual kickoff event on 8-24-22. Current members attended to learn about the iCAP 2020, the role of the teams and members, and meet sustainability staff and fellow team members. The presentation is attached and the recording can be found here.
Ayush Gupta shared the following message: there are walkathons happening across 60 cities for the Save Soil movement in the States in June. Check it out here and consider participating if you happen to find yourself in one of the cities.
Attached is a video by Dr. Rattan Lal Video about how soil can be addressed at a global scale, and a power point about the Save Soil Movement.
Below is an email sent by Dr. Edwin Herricks to Morgan White regarding a research site to study stormwater mitigation designs.
Morgan,
You may not know, but some time ago I led a project to create a research site on the parking lot across from the residence halls to study parking lot stormwater mitigation designs. Of importance we installed a weir for a gauging capability for the lot discharge. Unfortunately, the U did not proceed with the lot improvements so the weir simply sits.
Art Schmidt is aware of this and over the years I have encouraged him to take advantage of the infrastructure.
Hopefully if you know about this capability you may find some use for it.
Ed
Attached are the Land and Water iCAP Team April meeting notes.
Attached are the Land and Water iCAP Team March meeting notes.
Heidi Leuszler (Parkland University) and Eliana Brown (Illinois Extension) led an overview of the National Green Infrastructure Certification Program. Click here to view and download the recording.
The Sustainability Council is in support of further discussion about the Vet Med Parking Lot Re-Design and broader rainwater management issues, as discussed at the meeting on November 29, 2021. F&S will get the committee together to discuss broad rainwater management issues, and one of the tasks will be to discuss the Vet Med challenge. For future project updates, visit the Vet Med Parking Lot Re-Design project page here.
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See transmittal and iWG assessment of the LW002 Vet Med Parking Lot Re-Design.
See submittal of LW002 Vet Med Parking Lot Re-Design here.
Following the completion of iWG assessment for LW002 Vet Med Parking Lot Re-design, the recommendation was transmitted to the Sustainability Sub-Council (11-10-21) and Sustainability Council (11-29-21).
See the attached iWG assessment for LW002 Vet Med Parking Lot Re-design.
See the Land and Water recommendation of LW002 Vet Med Parking Lot Re-Design.
We had a great iCAP Team and iCAP Working Group Kickoff on 9/16/21! During the event, we heard from iSEE Interim Director, Dr. Madhu Khanna, went through the team rosters, iCAP Procedures, iCAP 2020 and progress made thus far, and lastly summarized other resources that sustainability advocates should be aware of.
The iCAP Teams and iCAP Working Group are instrumental in helping campus advance and achieve our sustainability goals and we look forward to a great year!
The presentation is attached and the recording is found here.
Charge letter from Interim Director Madhu Khanna to the Land and Water iCAP Team for the 2021-2022 academic year
Attached are the charge letters sent to each of the iCAP Team members, on September 10 by iSEE interim director, Dr. Madhu Khanna.
Energy iCAP Team Charge Letter 2021-2022.pdf Engagement iCAP Team Charge Letter 2021-2022.pdf Land and Water iCAP Team Charge Letter 2021-2022.pdf Resilience iCAP Team Charge Letter 2021-2022.pdf Transportation iCAP Team Charge Letter 2021-2022.pdf Zero Waste iCAP Team Charge Letter 2021-2022.pdf Education iCAP Team Charge Letter 2021-2022.pdfCrop Sciences/ACES is committed to sustainability and works hard to ensure our land is responsibly managed! They are hosting a series of Agronomy Days; events are free and open to the public though registration is encouraged to reserve your space. Agronomy Day field events will begin on July 22 and run through August 19; tours are held each Thursday from 9 AM - 12 PM.
Click here for more information and to register: http://agronomyday.cropsciences.illinois.edu/
Brent Lewis provided the following update to the Land and Water iCAP Team:
One of the iCAP objectives under Land and Water (4.2.1) involves a service learning project to better understand our historic and current tree canopy percentages. I just wanted to reach out and say that I’ve worked it out with our NRES faculty member, Jennifer Fraterrigo that she will work with her students in the fall to prepare this analysis. As our last 2 tree surveys were generally on 2008 and 2018, they will take a look at those years and put together an analysis. Over this time, I believe we lost between 10-12% of our tree inventory on campus. It is my thought that this loss in older trees would have meant a much larger loss in actual tree canopy. This would generally equate to a loss of habitat, increase in ambient temperatures and increase in rainwater that would otherwise have been used by the trees. I have been wanting to get a handle on the loss as I push for resources to replace what we had, as well as enhance what we will have for the future.
The Sustainability Sub-Council discussed and approved this recommendation at the March 18, 2021 meeting. The meeting minutes are online at: https://icap.sustainability.illinois.edu/project-update/sustainability-s...
The key next steps are:
See iWG assessment started for ALUFS004 South Farm Management Plan here.
See SWATeam recommendation ALUFS004 South Farm Management Plan here.
For future updates on this effort, visit Sustainable Land Management Committee.
