Perspectives of the Lower Humber

A project by:

Sonia Kowaliw & Cyrilla Smith

Benefits of Remediation

• Improves water quality and associated costs.• Limits flood damage and lowers the costs of flood

control.• Decreases storm water management costs.• Decreases sprawl and infrastructure costs.• Provides jobs for residents.• Recreational opportunities.• Raises property values and generates new tax revenues.• Attracts provincial and federal funding, volunteers, and

financial support.

Why remediation is needed:

• There is a misrepresentation of Toronto as a ‘watershed’ city.

• There is extensive erosion and pollution in the area, causing further damage to the surrounding residential and industrial areas.

• The site is underused due to its degraded condition.

• There are few places for re-introducing wildlife into Toronto’s urban environment in the area.

The Humber River Watershed

8 Design Principles• Preserve natural river features and functions.• Buffer sensitive and natural areas.• Restore riparian and in-stream habitats.• Use nonstructural alternatives to manage water

resources.• Reduce hardscapes.• Manage storm water on site and use nonstructural

approaches.• Balance recreational and public access goals with river

protection.• Incorporate information about a river’s natural resources

and cultural history into the design of riverfront features, public art, and interpretive signs.

Project Goals

• To attract users from both the immediate community as well as from the GTA to use the space.

• To create a design proposal that is both sustainable and practical.

• To link the site to wildlife networks, ensuring wildlife has a place in the city.

• To incorporate art forms and culture into the landscape and its surrounding areas.

Traditional Urban River Planning

• A source for major concern.

• What happens when the Queensway developers want to use this strategy to fix their ‘lack of land for use’ problem?

Urban riverfront planning…

“…must reconcile development, flood control, and recreation with environmental designs and strategies that enhance the river’s ecological systems.”

“…we must first understand the history and current state of urban river health. We must also recognize the threats to these rivers, including the essential components of a healthy river, and the prospects for rehabilitating rivers as living ecosystems.”

South Humber Park

• Connect and enhance values and uses into our site?

• How should we design the site given this park exists just across the river?

• Because this space exists so close, can we focus our site with a more ecological purpose?

• How will the City of Toronto, the jurisdictional authority, incorporate our recommendations to the surrounding area if we choose not to include certain characteristics of the South Humber Park?

Air Photo

The Site in its Current State

The Design

Design Cross-Sections

Riparian Plantings

Trees• Sugar Maple (Acer saccharum)

• Red Maple (Acer rubrum L.)

• Mountain Maple (Acer spicatum)

• Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra)

• Alternate-Leaf Dogwood (Cornus cuternifolia L.)

• Showy Mountain Ash (Sorbus decora)

• American Mountain Ash (Sorbus americana)

• American Beech (Fagus grandifolia)

• White Birch (Betula papyrifera)

• Speckled Alder (Alnus incana)

• Shining Willow (Salix lucida)

• Balsam Poplar (Populus balsamifera)

• White Elm (Ulmus americana L.)

Grasses• Girant Reed (Arundo donax)• Bergrenii Carex (Carex bergrenii)• Cotton Grass (Eriophorum argustifolium)• Variagated Manna Grass (Glyceria maxima ‘Variegata’)• Purple Moor Grass (Molinia caerulea ssp. Arundinacea ‘Skyracer’)• Switchgrass (Panicum virgatum)• Canada Bluejoint (Calamagrostis canadensis)• Canada Wildrye (Elymus candensis)• Path Rush (Juncus tenuis)• Indian Grass (Sorghastrum nutans)• Big Bluestem (Andropogon gerardii)• Prairie Cord Grass (Spartina pectinata)• Indian Hemp (Apocynum cannabinum)• Green Bulrush (Scirpus atrovirens)• Sweetgrass (Hierochloe odorata)

Wildflowers• Sweet Flag (Acorus americanus)• Northern Blue Flag (Iris versicolor)• Common Arrow-Grass (Triglochin maritima)• Pickerelweed (Pontederia cordata)• Common Cattail (Typha latifolia)• Lizard’s Tail (Saururus cernuus)• Purple-Stemmed Angelica (Angelica atropurpurea)• Spotted Cowbane (Cicuta maculata)• Swamp Wilkweed (Asclepias incarnata)• Spotted Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum)• Boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum)• Grass-Leaved Goldenrod (Euthamia graminifolia)• Rough-Stemmed Goldenrod (Solidago rugosa)• New England Aster (Symphyotrichum novae-angliae)• Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)• Bottle Gentian (Gentiana andrewsii)• Wild Mint (Mentha arvensis)• Canada Anenome (Anenome canadensis)• Marsh Marigold (Caltha palustris)

Recommendations

• The TRCA, SARA and the local community must work together for the successful implementation of our proposal and for river revitalization in general.

• For remediation to occur in the Queensway area to incorporate and include ecological functions that ultimately enhance local and regional economic, health and environmental standards/values.