The UN identified water as a human right in 2010; however, the bodies analyzing and designing water management often do not represent a diverse spectrum of the populations they serve. Villanova Center for Resilient Water Systems (VCRWS) research focuses on supplying resilient and sustainable solutions to global water and stormwater challenges. A diverse team of faculty, staff and students created a group that discusses diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) in the context of water resources engineering and associated design and solution considerations. The group has discussed a wide array of topics through the biweekly meetings. Some benefits of this group included the opportunity for personal growth and development, education on incorporating DEI into engineering thought, and re-education on DEI issues. This group served as a mechanism for members to share their grief and concerns over the political, social, and environmental issues that impede positive change. Outputs from this group include (1) competing in the Schiller Challenge through writing a paper on DEI in water engineering as a group, (2) drawing an action plan to further incorporate DEI in the activities of VCRWS through research, symposiums, conferences, public outreach programs, articles and papers, and engineering education, and (3) creating a guideline for creating DEI groups in other departments, research centers and institutions. This presentation will discuss lessons learned from creating and implementing a successful DEI focused working group within the water resource research center and will include some of the future work planned by the VCRWS group, such as incorporating DEI into the Water and Environmental Engineering curriculum through curating audiovisual materials on DEI concepts, and case studies of successes stories of DEI.

Rain gardens are green stormwater infrastructure that are designed to leverage natural processes to mitigate the impacts of urban stormwater through capturing, infiltrating, and filtering run off. Overtime these systems have the potential to buildup fines and nutrients, impacting their sustainable function. A rain garden’s performance depends on its ability to infiltrate runoff which can be reduced by clogging. Another concern is the potential transport of contaminants from rain gardens to groundwater through deep drainage. This study analyses the spatial and temporal distribution of fines and nutrients in three rain gardens through comprehensive field tests, laboratory testing, and computation analysis. Geomorphic studies were performed by integrating the digital elevation models, derived from Lidar surveys, with the FastMech solver within International River Interface Cooperative (iRIC) software, to model shear stress distribution and sediment transport relative to spatial observations of soil texture and nutrient concentrations within the rain garden. The soil properties were also used in creating models of water infiltration and nutrient sorption using Hydrus 1D. Results show that shear stresses in localized sections of each rain garden can be correlated with fines and nutrient distributions, allowing for prioritizing locations for maintenance. To conclude, LiDAR scans, flow and shear stress models, infiltration and nutrient transport models, field and laboratory soil tests can help us understand the surface dynamics and soil attributes, and gradually gain insight into the GSI performance with time.