Implementation of Swales at Ithaca College Organic Garden Chris Gordon, Lauren Krug, Jenny Moore

What is a Swale? A swale is a slight depression that runs with the contour of the land and is level along its length. It can be deep or shallow, or even under gravel and turned into a path.

Why Swales? Great alternative landscaping method Reduces run-off Slow it, Spread it, Sink IT!!

Slow it, Spread it, Sink it

How Swales Work

Fostering Sustainable Habits Promoting Sustainable Behaviors Reaching a Specific Target Audience Encountering Barriers and Finding Solutions to Get Around them

Behaviors Promoted Capturing run-off water in the ground for use instead of following the typical practice of getting the water off-site as soon as possible, to keep it from eroding landscape and pooling In our case, our goal was to slow down and disperse the water run-off into the garden that was causing the ground to be extremely wet a majority of the time Non-traditional, sustainable landscaping

Target Audience Ithaca College Organic Garden Ithaca College Grounds Crew Ithaca College Administration

Barriers Encountered The community outreach portion of our project did not go quite as planned due to a small turnout at the workday, despite numerous announcements to various organizations on campus that would be interested. Due to impending winter weather, we were pressed for time to get the swales completed. We also experienced heavy rainfall immediately after their creation which caused some repairs to be needed.

Location IC Organic Garden Why? Garden is too wet due to its location at the bottom of a hill that catches a lot of run-off Poor drainage, does not allow water to exit area easily

How To…Build a Swale Basics Start at the top of the watershed Measure contour lines Stagger the basins Bigger rather than smaller

Top of the berm must be level and compacted Basin needs to be level, but do NOT compact Spilway Low point of the berm 2/3 the height of the berm

Water Holding Capacity Formulas Area = 1/2 x Width x Depth Volume of water-holding capacity= Area x Length Volume = 1/2 x Width x Depth x Length Water Holding Capacity= 3675 in 3 = ft 3

Seeding Winter Rye Anchors the berm to hold it together to prevent erosion

Results Swales were effective for the most part Shovel points to breakage in berm on top swale after first rain storm Reinforced with more soil, compacted and planted with winter rye to strengthen berm

View from bottom of garden View From top of garden

Plans For the Future Ensuring that the basin is level so the water drains properly Further planting of the berms to ensure stability Possibly adding two more swales above the existing two swales to regulate run-off more efficiently

Thanks To… Karryn Olson-Ramanujan IC Organic Garden IC Grounds Crew Brad Lancaster Rainwater Harvesting aka The Bible

I Love SWALES!!!