Four RACC interns, Danya AbdelHameid, Jelissa Reynoso Garcia, Lindsay Coitnoir, and Hannah Klein, spent the summer working with Dr. Stephanie Hurley (Stormwater Management & Landscape Design) and graduate student Paliza Shrestha (Ecological Landscape Design) at the UVM Bioretenetion Laboratory.

The University of Vermont Bioretention Laboratory is a site of ongoing research on the use of bioretention systems to absorb and treat stormwater runoff from impervious surfaces. Built in 2012 near a major visitor parking lot on the UVM Campus, this project serves as a public demonstration of bioretention “rain gardens” and is an example of environmental science research in action. The interns investigated the mechanisms influencing sediment and nutrient retention and greenhouse gas emissions within eight stormwater bioretention “cells.”