WAIT!

Program
Recommendations Report

SPRING 2016 - PRATT INSTITUTE

• Programs for Sustainable Planning and Development
Advisor: Jaime Stein
Students: Lekhana Chidanand, Miguel Diaz, Maria Gonzalez
• Graduate Communication Design Program
Advisor: David Frisco
Students: Melissa Berman, Corwin Green
 • Introduction
Report • Implementation Plan

Overview • Land Use, Demographic &

Building Type Analyses
• Survey Development
• Literature Review
• Engagement by Watershed

Introduction • 2
 Wait! Is a community engagement campaign to reduce problems with combined

Origin of the
sewer overflow. This program uses printed media and text messages to encourage
residents to limit their use of unnecessary water during rainy events. These activ-
ities include washing dishes, using laundry machines, having multiple baths and

Wait! Program
flushing the toilet. A pilot program is set to start this June on a small targeted area
in Brooklyn. With Success, the pilot will grow to cover all communities in Brooklyn.

After initial planning sessions with city wide water quality advocates including the
S.W.I.M. Coalition and Newtown Creek Alliance, NYC DEP hired Futerra a behavioral
design agency and M&R, a strategy and community engagement firm. Together
they generated printed media, helped create the pilot scope and conducted
preliminary community outreach.

Introduction • 3
 Pratt Institute joined the Wait! effort the Spring of 2016 to assist NYC DEP in
assessing the pilot’s success and scaling it up citywide. Pratt’s research team
includes graduate Green Infrastructure Fellows Maria Gonzalez, Lekhana

Pratt Institute’s Team

Chidananda and Miguel Diaz led by Jaime Stein, Professor and Director of the
Sustainable Environmental Systems program and graduate Communications
Design students Corwin Green and Melissa Berman led by Professor David Frisco.
Collectively, the research team, over the course of the Spring semester, gener-
ated a strategy and a list of recommendations to consider for measuring Wait!’s
success expanding citywide.

Introduction • 4
 We consider Wait! to be a waterbody stewardship campaign which offers
New Yorkers a way to take action in improving their local water quality.

Approach We set out the following objectives for Wait!:

• Connect Communities to Their Waterbodies

and Objectives •
•
Harness Community Action
Offer Qualitative Measures of Success for Wait!

To accomplish these objectives and scale the Wait! pilot citywide, we propose
an expansion strategy in which Wait! grows watershed by watershed, following
the City’s ongoing Long Term Control Plan Process.

The team also recognizes the importance of stakeholders in this effort.

Advocates, community and civic organizations citywide are actively engaged in
the mitigation of overflows and the education of community members as to how
they can make a change to improve the current condition of our water bodies.

This report offers an expansion framework with a strategic methodology for a

watershed demographic study as well as a community survey, a stakeholder
analysis and recommendations for qualitative tools for measuring Wait!’s success.
In total, providing a methodology for replication of Wait! in each watershed.

Our vision for Wait! is to achieve a social cohesion between the multiple communities
that belong to the same watershed, so that they might understand their impact and how
they can take action to change their current habits for a more sustainable environment
in their homes and neighborhood.

Introduction • 5
Wait!
The goal of each Long Term Control Plan as determined by the Department of
Environmental Protection (DEP) is to “identify, with public input, appropriate
CSO controls necessary to achieve waterbody-specific water quality standards

Implementation
(WQS) consistent with the Federal CSO Control Policy and related guidance”.

As mentioned in the previous chapter, we propose a watershed-based methodol-

City-wide
ogy for city-wide implementation in order to integrate the implementation pro-
cess within the existing LTCP schedule and ongoing City and Institutional efforts.

The Long Term Control Plan Process as a Starting Point and Engagement Strategy

Implementation Plan • 6
 1. Longterm Control Plan

Implementation
The NYC Department of Environmental Protection has included 11 of these water-
sheds within Combined Sewer Overflow Long Term Control Plans in an effort to
reduce pollution from sewer overflow and improve water quality city-wide. Our

Methodology
recommendation is to work with the established timeframe and watershed order.

2. Waterbody by Waterbody
The plan is to scale up a methodology that goes waterbody to waterbody.
Our recommendation is to work with the established timeframe and watershed
order to align City and State efforts with the plans and public involvement
meetings already in motion.

3. Watershed Built Environment & Demographics

This encapsulates the analysis of existing land use and buidling type, median
household income, population density and affordable housing units, and
demographic conditions, including race, ethnicity, and language spoken.

Implementation Plan • 7
 New York City is connected through 13 Watersheds. The NYC Department of
Environmental Protection has included 11 of these watersheds within Combined

Implementation
Sewer Overflow Long Term Control Plans in an effort to reduce pollution from
sewer overflow and improve water quality city-wide.1

by watershed
The Flushing Bay and Flushing Creek watersheds in Queens are the pilot areas
under study for the purpose of this report, as their Public Engagement processes
are next in the LTCP schedule.

Our recommendation is to work with the established timeframe and watershed order,
as established in Fig. 1, to align City and State efforts with the plans and public
involvement meetings already in motion.

Implementation Plan • 8 1
S.W.I.M. Coalition, 2015.
5 WAYS TO SPEAK UP
AT A DEP MEETING
INDIVIDUAL LTCP SCHEDULES
Waterbody Status* Public involvement

3 Nov. 17, 2015

1 Tell the NYC DEP how you currently Alley Creek
use the city’s waterways, and how
Fig. 1. Long Term Control Plan Schedule for
Combined Sewer Overflow by watershed
you would use the water if it were
(S.W.I.M. Coalition 2015) Westchester Creek The State DEC expected to invite
cleaner. It is important that DEP not comments on whether to approve
just prioritize high traffic beaches for plan.
water quality improvements. Hutchinson River

2 Ask about the NYC DEP’s water

quality goals for the plan. Will the
Bronx River
Send public comments to the State
DEC.
water be fishable and swimmable. If
Send public comments to the State
you paddler, row, or use the water in Gowanus Canal
DEC.
any other way, advocate for the water
to be clean enough to swim in safely. The State DEC expected to invite
Flushing Creek
comments on whether to approve
3 Ask the NYC DEP how they plan to
control CSO in your waterbody. Will Flushing Bay
The City DEP will submit final plan to
they reduce CSO? Can expanding the State DEC. June 2017
green infrastructure help reduce
CSO? Or, will DEP add chlorine to 1 Nov. 4, 2015.
disinfect CSO, and what health and Coney Island Creek Send public comments to the City
environmental risks does this pose? DEP through Dec. 4, 2015.

4 Ask about the relationship of

each waterbody to its neighboring Jamaica Bay &
Tributaries
waterbodies. For example, is a
proposal to reduce CSOs in one
planning has not begun, stay tuned for more
waterbody increasing discharges in Newtown Creek information on status of plan and opportunities for
an adjacent waterbody?
public involvement

5 Ask about the LTCP timeline. When is

the NYC DEP starting improvements
Citywide
(East River & Open
and why? Waters)*
 Flushing Bay and Flushing Creek are located in North Central Queens.
The watersheds have a combined drainage area of 18,854 acres, of which

Why Flushing Bay

61.2% is served by combined sewers.2 This accounts for almost 10% of New
York City’s total land area.3

and Flushing Creek?

According to the Long Term Control Plan timeline, the Flushing Creek and
Flushing Bay watersheds are the following to undergo review by the NYCDEP
and in public engagement meetings.

As our recommendation is to follow the LTCP public engagement process,

the team developed a series of maps to understand the various demographic
data within the watershed such as the median household income, language
distribution, population density etc. The group also analysed the watershed
area in terms of the sewersheds, and the stakeholders that operate within the
watershed area. The various stakeholders include educational groups, govern-
mental, non-profit groups, business etc. The analysis of the data helped develop
ethnographic research and surveys to discover the efficacy of the WAIT! program
in the Flushing Bay & Flushing Creek watershed.

2
Own calculations based on the DEP Flushing Bay Fact Sheet of and the Flushing Creek LTCP of 2014.
Implementation Plan • 10 3
Reference area for New York City: 301 square miles. Own calculations based on data from NYC Official
Statistics (http://www.nycgo.com/articles/nyc-statistics-page).
 The demographic information and mapping analysis reveals patterns and indica-

Mapping
tors that can be compared in other areas to select and address correctly other
communities with different characteristics but with the same purpose. The group
developed maps that showed demographics for Flushing Bay & Flushing Creek,

Analysis
including several types of data such as salary, primary language, income, and
population density as well as breaking down the locations of stakeholders and New
York City watersheds to motivate this groups to be involved in the Wait! program.

Demographic conditions, including race, ethnicity,

and language spoken
As watersheds and geopolitical boundaries differ greatly, so do the populations
within the watersheds. The timely consideration of the cultural and language
composition within each watershed, accompanied by a more qualitative under-
standing of cultural influences in the relationship to water, will allow for the
message to be delivered comprehensively and considerately.

Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 11

 This will provide insight regarding areas of high concentration of residential

Analysis of use, water usage related to building types and to the way building residents
are billed. According to the New York City Local Law 84 Benchmarking report

Existing Land Use

of 2013, multifamily properties have the most intensive water consump-
tion, with the highest rate of water consumption per square foot in the City.
Multifamily properties are also the largest contributing sector of water use

and Building Type data.4 This relates to Median Household Income, as low-income households
tend to be larger than average-income household. In turn, a greater number
of people in the household leads to increased water usage.5

The map shows the watershed areas in New York City and highlights the
The map locates all of New York City’s sewersheds and overlays the Flushing Bay/ Creek watershed
Flushing Bay and Fushing Creek watershed boundary among the other
boundary with the sewersheds. The watershed covers most of the Bowery Bay and Talman Island
watershed boundaries.
sewersheds.

NYC Watersheds NYC Sewershed Watershed Land Use

The map shows the watershed areas in The map locates all of New York City’s Land Use within the Flushing Bay &
New York City. and locates the Flushing sewersheds and overlays the Flushing Bay Flushing Creek watershed area. Most of
Bay & Flushing Creek watershed boundary & Flushing Creek watershed boundary. the area consists of one and two family
among the other watershed boundaries. The watershed covers a large part of the buildings.
Bowery Bay and Talman Island sewersheds.

Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 12 4

http://www.nyc.gov/html/planyc/downloads/pdf/publications/ll84_year_two_report.pdf
5
Margaret Saunders, “Water Affordability Programs”. American Water Works Association, 1998.
The map shows the watershed areas in New York City and highlights the
Flushing Bay and Fushing Creek watershed boundary among the other
watershed boundaries.
The map locates all of New York City’s sewersheds and overlays the Flushing Bay/ Creek watershed
boundary with the sewersheds. The watershed covers most of the Bowery Bay and Talman Island
sewersheds.
Analysis of Median Water usage and cost of water is not experienced in the same way throughout
each watershed. The Income, Density and Affordable Housing paradigm has

Household Income, many implications:

• Affordable Housing residents are more severely affected by water consump-

Population Density &

tion rates - According to the Affordable Water for Affordable Housing
Report of 2015 by the University Neighborhood Housing Program, Higher-
density, water costs have a disproportionate impact on affordable housing.

Affordable Housing This is particularly true in “larger apartments occupied by lower income
households in New York City neighborhoods” (University Neighborhood
Housing Program 2015).

• Low-income households use and spend more in water - The report also states
that the owners of buildings with larger households or larger apartments are
guaranteed to have higher usage and larger water charges. A report from
Harvard University about America’s Rental Housing establishes that utility
costs represent 15% to 21% of income for renters with incomes below $15,000,
but just 1% for those with incomes equal or superior to $75,000.

• Older building types, typically rented by low-income residents, are less

energy-efficient and experience greater leakages - Low-income renters
usually live in older buildings which are generally less energy efficient,
especially in small multifamily structures. Furthermore, a recent study pub-
lished by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that among
renters living in structures of five or more units, those with lower incomes
were less likely to have Energy Star appliances, programmable thermostats,
or other energy-efficient features.

Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 16
4
http://www.jchs.harvard.edu/sites/jchs.harvard.edu/files/jchs_americas_rental_housing_2013_1_0.pdf
5
According to the Joint Center for Housing Studies of Harvard Univesity, low-income renters are more
likely than higher-income renters to reside in specific housing types such as two-to-four-unit structures
or mobile homes. Furthermore, among renters living in five-or-higher-unit structures, those with lower
incomes were less likely to have energy-efficient appliances.
 Population Density
The census tracts with high population
density overlap with the census tracts that
have a majority of multi family elevator and
no elevator buildings.

Population Density

5000 - 28000 2500 - 3900 Less than 1500

3900 - 5000 1500 - 2500

Distribution of Asian and other Pacific island language speaking population Distribution of Spanish speaking population

50% - 80% 20% - 50% 0% - 5% 40% - 100% 10% - 20% 0% - 5%

20% - 40% 5% - 10%
20% - 50% 5% - 20%

Watershed median household Distribution of Asian & other Distribution of Spanish

income
The census tracts close to the water body
have some of the high income areas as
well as medium income areas. Most of the
low income areas are found along the
southeastern quadrant.
Pacific Island language language speaking population
speaking population A majority of the Spanish speaking popula-
About 80% of the Asian and other tion ( >40%) resides close to the waterbody
Pacific Island language speaking pop- in the northwestern region of the water-
ulation houses the area. The western shed boundary.
half houses a less Asian speaking
population (about 20-50%).
 Population Density

5000 - 28000 2500 - 3900 Less than 1500

3900 - 5000 1500 - 2500
 Distribution of Asian and other Pacific island language speaking population

50% - 80% 20% - 50% 0% - 5%

20% - 50% 5% - 20%
 Distribution of Spanish speaking population

40% - 100% 10% - 20% 0% - 5%

20% - 40% 5% - 10%
 The benefits of searching stakeholder groups and addressing them in the Wait!

Stakeholder
movement is to create and develop community engagement programs to start
creating conscious of CSOs (combined sewer outflow) and make the people
understand the use of grey and dark water when is raining. The Stakeholder

Analysis
Groups can harness community action and engagement by reaching out to
their current and potential members, as well as close neighbours, and explain
to them how does the program works, the benefits of being part of it and the
importance of feeling a sense of identity to their environment. The stakeholder’s
community engagement can provide the necessary information about the the
rainwater runoff and the problem it presents to the sewer systems and ultimately,
the water bodies. This will help motivate people into taking action and aiding the
Wait! program as well as delivering a complicated message, since is more likely
for the community to agree to a program when a local group and people they
know are participating.

Creating concerns about the present situation with each group will help spread
the program just the way it is expected so, in a more developed phase, it can
begin to spread by itself and to the communities that reside in nearby areas.
Although is important to notify that not every single stakeholder that exist in
flushing bay and flushing creek is listed in this work, is likely that we can ask for
their help to engage the community to be a part of the Wait! program as long
as they share the same objectives and principles that the movement does.

Stormwater Infrastructure Matters, better known as S.W.I.M., is a coalition

dedicated to ensuring swimmable waters around New York City through natu-
ral, sustainable stormwater management practices in our neighborhoods since
stormwater is currently seen as a waste not a resource. This coalition, supporting
the WAIT! program has agreed to share their information about the stakeholder
groups that are currently influencing Flushing Creek and Flushing Avenue with
a sustainable purpose.

Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 22

 The stakeholder’s list given by S.W.I.M joined with the information from the

Watershed Stewardship map, the Green Infrastructure Group from Pratt Institute has
developed a list of most of the groups that can be found inside the area of

Stakeholders
action or that have an impact or interest in Flushing Bay or Flushing Creek.
This information was taken and analysed in a matrix to understand what kind
of services did the stakeholder’s provided and what their main focussed was

Analysis on. The stakeholders were divided into educational, non-profit, governmen-
tal, community/civic, private, business, sports and others. In this way, it could
be differentiated what kind of work was being done in Flushing Creek and
Flushing Bay and what type of communities was the most common in the area
and have the biggest workforce to deal with. We also added the directions of
all of the Stakeholders to see where was their meeting place or their place of
action. With this information we are able to see where is the most strong
concentration of environmental groups and what places lack them.

These set of maps identify the different stakeholder groups located within the
Flushing Bay/Creek watershed boundary and place of operation. This helps
to identify the areas with strong concentration of environmental groups and
the places that lack them. The groups have a more local appeal and would help
spread the awareness about the CSO concerns among the local population.
It is separated into the activities that each stakeholder is focused on, so the
Wait! program can measure what type of organization has a major impact
in the community.

Complete Stakeholder
Locations Map

Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 23

Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 24
Business Educational Environmental Governmental

Non-Profit Private Recreational

Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 25

Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 26
Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 27
Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 28
Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 29
Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 30
Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 31
Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 32
Business Organisations
14. College Point Board of Trade
28. Flushing Chinese Business
Association
38. Green Shores NYC
50. Legal Action For Animals
73. Queens Zoo
82. The Queens Tribune
Private Organisations
2. Arrow Yacht Club
14. College Point Board of Trade
15. Colle Point Yacht Club
25. Empire Dragon Boat Team
38. Green Shores NYC
50. Legal Action For Animals
76. Seadogs Dragon Boat Team
77. Sebago Canoe Club
82. The Queens Tribune
84. Williamsburgh Around
The Bridge Association
85. Williamsburgh Yacht Club
86. Woman In Canoe
Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 33
Educational Organisations
17. Community Board 3
20. Community Board 3
34. Friends Of Flushing Creek
36. Future Leaders
61. NYC Water Trail Association
69. Queens Historical Society
74. Queensboro Hill Flushing
Civic Association
81. TASCA
85. Williamsburg Yacht Club
Sports Organisations
21. Domican Baseball League
25. Empire Dragons Boat Team
38. World Fair Marina
58. NY Wall Street Dragons
61. NYC Water Trail Association
69. Queens College
76. Seadogs Dragon Boat Team
77. Sebago Canoe Club
86. Woman In Canoe
Governmental Organisations
5. Bland Senior Center
8. CB #7
10. City of NY Dept. of Parks
and Recreations
11. City of NY Department of Forest
Pard Administration Office
17. Community Board 3
18. Community Board 4
26. Flushing Bay Task Force
30. Flushing Town Council
47. Loren-American Senior
Citizens Society
64. Pomonok Community Center
66. Q Precinct 115 Council
73. Queens Zoo
Environmental Organisations
2. Arrow Yacht Club
4. BE ONE
5. Bland Senior Center
6. Boy Scouts of America Troop 255
7. Boy Scouts of America Troop 235
8. CB #7
9. Chinese Artists Association
12. Club Scout Park 255
13. Coastal Preservation Network
14. College Point Board of Trade
15. College Point Yacht Club
20. Cultural Research Drivers
23. Elmcor Youth & Adult Activities
26. Flushing Bay Task Force
27. Flushing Cementary Association
29. Flushing Meadow Corona
Park Alliance
31. Forest Park Trust
33. Friends of Cunningham Park
34. Friends of Flushing Creek
35. Friends of Inwood Hill Park
37. Girls Scout of America
38. Green Shores NYC
40. Holly Civic Association
45. Kew Guardians Civic Association
46. Kissena Park Civic Association
47. Loren-American Senior Citizens
Society
Land Use, Demographic & Building Type Analyses • 34
48. Latimer Gardens Community
Society
51. Malcom X Garden
52. Mt. Oliver Gospel Church
54. New York Harbod Foundation
55. New York Tree Trust
56. Mewton Civic Association
57. North Flushing Civic Association
61. NYC Water Trail Association
64. Pomonok Community Center
66. Q Precinct 115 Council
67. Queens Botanical Garden
69. Queens College: Urban Studies
73. Queens Zoo
74. Queensboro Hill Flushing Civic
78. Selfhelp
79. St. Mark Ame Church
81. TASCA
84. Williamsburgh Around
The Bridge Association
85. Williamsburgh Yacht Club
86. Woman in Canoe
88. Young Peoples Garden
Association
89. 97th Association Community
Garden
Non-Profit Organisations
3. Bayside Yacht Club
6. Boy Scouts Of America Troop 255
7. Boy Scouts Of America Troop 235
12. Club Scout Park 255
13. Coastal Preservation Association
23. Elmcor Youth & Adult Activities
25. Empire Dragon Boat Team
29. Flushing Meadow Corona Park
Alliance
36. Future Leaders
37. Girl Scouts of America
38. Green Shores NYC
39. Guardians of Flushing Bay
41. Jackson Heights Action Group
42. Jackson Heights Beautification
Group
53. New York Harbor Foundation
58. NY Wall Street Dragons
61. NYC Water Trial Association
70. Queens Historical Society
71. Queens Jewish Community
Council
72. Queens trees for the Future Girl
Scouts
76. Seadogs Dragon Boat Team
77. Sebago Canoe Club
86. Woman In Canoe
87. Young Korean American Service
Survey The communication design team devised a survey with three stages: beginning,

Development
middle and end. One goal is to determine awareness of CSOs and understanding
the campaign’s success, then coming back to people who have agreed to be a
part of the pilot and asking how it has changed their water habits.

& Measuring
While devising a methodology, we brought forth four indicators — access,
empathy, education and, identity — to create a list of questions.

Success
• Access signifies one’s relationship with, New York City’s waterways and
community centers, water, in general.

• Empathy signifies how one interacts with water.

• Education is based on municipal and water issues.

• Identity is straightforward; these questions gather info about the

respondent’s personal background. 

Survey development based on CSO community concerns, S.W.I.M. information

and other sources. During it’s conception we considered how the DEP could
continue to engage with the participants in the survey and how they could
leverage the survey with community engagement.

Survey Development • 35
 Pre-pilot Survey
Access Identity
How close are community centers to your area? In what borough of New York City do you live?

Within 1 mile Brooklyn

Pre-pilot
Within 5 miles Bronx

Within 10 miles Manhattan

Survey
I do not know where my community center is located Queens

Staten Island
How close are gathering spaces to your area?
I do not live in New York City
Within 1 mile

Within 5 miles What is your race/ethnicity?

Within 10 miles
White
I do not know where my gathering space is located
Black, African American
Do you visit your closest waterbody? Hispanic, Latino, or Spanish

Yes No I do not know where my closest Asian

waterbody is located
American Indian or Native American
How often do you visit?
Pacific Islander
Weekly
Other
Monthly

Annually

Less frequent than annually

Empathy
Never

Do you follow local news?

Education Yes No

If yes, how do you follow? (Select all that apply.)?

Are you registered to vote? TV

Yes Newspaper
No

If you are registered to vote, do you vote? Magazines

Internet
Yes No
Other
Do you know your local voting precinct?

Yes No
 Mid-pilot Survey
Empathy
How often do you shower? Do you have a personal green space (e.g., back-
yard or garden)? How often do you water it?
Twice or more a day

Once a day Yes

Mid-pilot
Every other day No

A few times a week Daily

Survey
Once a week Twice weekly

How long are your showers?

Do you do laundry in your home?
5 minutes or less

Yes No
5 to 10 minutes

10 minutes or more

Unsure Access
How far are you from your local bodega?
How often do you wash your hair?

Within 5 blocks
Daily
Within 10 blocks
Weekly
Within 20 blocks
Rarely
I do not know where my local bodega is located
I do not have hair

What type of outdoor water-oriented activities do

How often do you wash your laundry? Is it at home? you enjoy? (Select all that apply.)

More than one time per week

Swimming
b) One time per week
Boating
c) Every other week
Canoeing and/or kayaking
d) One time per month
Fishing
e) I do not do laundry/someone else does my laundry
Other

Do you pay your own water bill? If yes, what is the None, I do not participate in outdoor water-oriented activities
monthly cost?

Yes No $ Education
Are you active on any community boards?
Would you wait to flush your toilet for one hour
during a rain event? Yes No I do not know what a community board is

Absolutely Maybe Never What do you consider your community center or

the central community hub?
 Post-pilot Survey
Education
Green infrastructure is an interconnected network of Which of the following events about water issues
natural areas and other open spaces that conserves in New York City would you attend?
natural ecosystem values and functions sustains clear
air and water and provides a wide array of benefits
Informational session
to people and wildlife.
Presentation by NYC Department of Environmental Protection

Post-pilot
Have you ever heard of?
Film screening
Bioswales
Volunteer event

Survey
Permeable paving
Participatory design session
Green roofs
None of the above
Stormwater greenstreets

Cisterns What does CSO stand for?

Congested Sewer Overflow

Are you familiar with water conservation techniques?
Congested Subterranean Occupancy
Short showers
Community Situations Override
Low flow fixtures
Cistern Sewage Outfall
Mellow yellow flushing

Recycling grey water Were you aware of combined sewer overflows

(CSOs) before taking this survey?
None of the above

Aware Unaware

In your opinion, which of the following are the most

pressing environmental issues? Did you learn something new about environmental
issues in New York City from this survey?
Sea level rise
Yes No
Water quality in New York City

Aging infrastructure Has this survey affected your stance on using wa-
ter during storm events?
Climate change

Empathy None of the above

Yes No

Which of the following water conservation tech- How likely are you to change your water usage
niques are you most familiar with?? during the next storm?

Gray water management Absolutely Maybe Never

Zero statement

Coastal protection

Clean water legislation

Identity
 Articles that focus on the behavior of individuals and the reasoning why

Literature
ethnographic research works through those behaviors were our focus. We
looked at how behavior change is developed for sustainable design and how
to create interventions to begin these behavior changes and why ethnographic

Review
research and the reasoning behind using it helps to create more efficient design.
This review included how behavior change is developed for sustainable design
and how to create interventions to begin these behavior changes.

Literature Review • 39
 In the 2009 essay, A Behaviour Model for Persuasive Design, scientist B.J. Fogg

A Behavior Model argues that persuasive design depends on the simplicity, and that designers,
while acknowledging that, designers should make the user user experience of

For Persuasive
services and/or products easy. Boggs presents his model, that has three factors
which define behavior: trigger, motivation and ability.

Design
Fogg, B. J. “A Behavior Model for Persuasive Design.” Proceedings of
the 4th International Conference on Persuasive Technology. New York,
NY, USA: ACM, 2009. 40:1–40:7. Print. Persuasive ’09.
The Fogg Behavior Model (FBM) asserts that ability and motivation are important
aspects human behavior, but certain behaviors will not happens without a trigger.
Fogg believes that with sufficient moderation, behavior can occur even when
one’s ability is low.
According to this model, elements of ability, called Simplicity Factors are money,
social deviance, physical effort, time, brain cycles, and non-routine.

Motivation can be explained through three core motivators with opposing dimen-
sions: pleasure/pain; hope/fear; and social acceptance/rejection. But, whereas
levels of ability and motivation can be manipulated, people depend on triggers
to prompt behavior.

“In real-world design, increasing ability is not about teaching people to do new things or
training them for improvement. People are generally resistant to teaching and training
because it requires effort. This clashes with the natural wiring of human adults: We are
fundamentally lazy. As a result, products that require people to learn new things routinely
fail. Instead, to increase a user’s ability, designers of persuasive experiences must make
the behavior easier to do. In other words, persuasive design relies heavily on the power of
simplicity.” (Fogg, 2009)

Literature Review • 40
Promoting Sustainable In the article, “Promoting Sustainable Behavior”, Doug McKenzie Mohr argues

Behavior: An that environmental psychology literature is best shared with people outside of
the field who design environmental communications programs. McKenzie-Mohr

Introduction To
presents a process, community-based social marketing that makes psychologi-
cal knowledge accessible to designers of environmental programs, and looks at
some of the obstacles to incorporating psychological expertise and programs

Community- Based that promote sustainable behavior.

McKenzie Mohr also provided case studies that highlight how community-

Social Marketing
Mc Kenzie-Mohr, Doug. “Promoting Sustainable Behavior: An
Introduction to Community-Based Social Marketing.” Planning
perspectives: PP 56.3 2000. Print.
based social marketing has been applied to a number of projects in Canada.
Two examples are a back yard composting campaign in Nova Scotia (following
the principles of community-based social marketing, they first conducted survey
research to identify local barriers to back- yard composting and determine
present levels of backyard composting) and ways to encourage water efficiency
in Nova Scotia. Others examples can be found at www.toolsofchange.com
and www.CBSM.com.

“Community-based social marketing is composed of four steps: uncovering barriers to

behaviors and then, based upon this information, selecting which behavior to promote;
designing a program to overcome the barriers to the selected behavior; piloting the program;
and then evaluating it once it is broadly implemented (McKenzie-Mohr & Smith, 1999).”

Literature Review • 41
The Behavior Change Michie, Stralen and West evaluate existing frameworks for behavior change

Wheel: A Method For interventions and develop the new framework that overcomes some of their
limitations. To identify these existing frameworks they were evaluated according

Characterizing And
to three criteria: coherence, comprehensiveness and a have a clear association to
an underlying model of behavior. A new framework was created accordingly.
They also provided a chart with definitions of interventions and policies.

Designing Behavior
Change Intervention
Michie, Susan, Maartje M. van Stralen, and Robert West. “The
Behaviour Change Wheel: A New Method for Characterising
and Designing Behaviour Change Interventions.” Implementation
science: IS 6 (2011): 42. Print.

Literature Review • 42
 Alan Peshkin writes about defending qualitative research in his article “The
Goodness of Qualitative Research.” He begins by stating his passion for proving

Goodness of
that this style of research has a basis within the more “intellectual insularity” of
the research community. His passion is then replaced by direct common sense
as he continues to describe why this type of research is worth using. The more

Qualitative Research researchers try to classify responses the harder it is to draw simple conclusions
from these. This is an important point of contention with this type of research,
because it makes the data harder to put into a table, but allows it to be a more
human level of understanding.

Peshkin, Alan. “The Goodness of Qualitative Research.” Educational
researcher 22.2 (1993): 23–29. Print.
Peshkin defines a list of four categories that a researcher can use to analyze
research outcomes: description, interpretation, verification, and evaluation. He
further breaks these down into subcategories, where many of these can overlap
into other main categories. Description relates to the influences that may effect
the research, the subcategories are processes, relationships, setting and situa-
tions, systems, and people all of these subcategories offer characterization for
the surroundings of the research study. Interpretation is directly related to the
conclusions drawn by the researcher, the subcategories (explain or create gener-
alizations, develop new concepts, elaborate existing concepts, provide insights,
clarify complexity, and develop theory) allow generalizations to be drawn on a
smaller scale. This becomes explanatory research that can help to classify and
provide background information for the findings.

“The more I attempted to locate a particular outcome within one of these four categories
and then within one of several subcategories, the more the locations blurred and blended,
so that thinking of the outcomes as discretely classifiable entities became increasingly
untenable.” (Peshkin, pg 23, 1993)
He tests the validity of findings with assumptions, theories, and generalizations.
He warns that these are not mainstays for all qualitative researchers, but that
every researcher must participate in a way to test the findings of the research and
this is the one he peters to use. The final category of evaluation is the policies,
practices, and innovations related to the research. This is done after the research
is complete and uses the data collected to come to a working conclusion. Due to
Literature Review • 43 the nature of this research the conclusion may not always be concretely defined.
The Rationale For In “The Rationale for Qualitative Research: A Review of Principles and Theoretical

Qualitative Research:
Foundations” Brett Sutton discusses similar themes as Peshkin but brings forth
some of the problems and solutions that may arise while researching and using
these themes. Sutton defines these as: “1) contextualization, an approach to

A Review Of Principles social-scientific observation that takes into account the environment in which the
observational event takes place; (2) understanding, an approach to the problem

And Theoretical
of knowledge and explanation that addresses the range of what can be learned
from observation; (3) pluralism, the proposition that not only social settings but
also the methods for explaining them resist reduction to a single model; and (4)

Foundations
Sutton, Brett. “The Rationale for Qualitative Research: A Review
of Principles and Theoretical Foundations.” The Library Quarterly:
Information, Community, Policy 63.4 (1993): 411–430. Print.
expression, the problem of conveying the results of research. These issues are
intended to serve as vehicles for the discussion of the consequences of qualita-
tive research in library and information science, to illustrate the kinds of problems
that the uses of the methods entail, and to suggest some of the reasons that
these problems are not fatal.” (Sutton, pg 412, 1993)

Sutton divides the world of qualitative research within the social sciences and
the definitive research preferred by the heavier sciences. It is in this distinction
that qualitative research becomes important. One of Sutton’s major concerns is
how the researcher behaves during the data collection. Sutton warns that the
researcher must always remain neutral to the surrounds and opinions expressed
by the person they are interviewing. If the researcher can take on the insider’s
point of view they can better relate to how the interviewee is feeling and be more
responsive with questions that will better lead the questions to follow.

“...is involving, cooperative, open-ended, and interpretive, and in important ways actu-
ally allows closer contact with lived experience than methods that depend on reductive
abstraction and quantification.” (Sutton, pg 412, 1993)
Throughout the article Sutton continuously refers to different psychological
modes that allow the researcher to understand the interviewee. Sutton believes
that by creating these relationships the qualitative data will be more valuable in
that it can be analyzed by someone who can identify with the subject. Sutton
closes the article by finding a home for qualitative research. Sutton’s ideal sit-
uation to use this style of research is within the social sciences and library and
information sciences to help people solve old problems in new, more personable
Literature Review • 44
and relatable approaches.
 The rationale of engaging people by watershed is not only relative to the LTCP sched-
ule, but also to educate and create a greater awareness in the neighboring communi-

Engagement
ties about the waterbodies that surround them.

The relationship to the waterfront in Flushing Bay and Flushing Creek has been long

by Watershed
dominated by industrial uses that contact or even access to water. Historically,
the site occupied by the Flushing Meadows Corona Park (which comprises much
of the surrounding drainage area of the Creek) was a tidal wetland. Today, 70% of
Flushing Bay and Flushing Creek’s shoreline (approximately 5000 linear feet) is
occupied by industrial uses. This happens despite an appalling 65% of surrounding
land use being exclusively residential and mixed residential-commercial, and 1%
representing industrial land use.8

The predominance of industrial and transportation-related uses has caused the hard-
ening of the shoreline through bulkheads and physical obstructions, which increas-
ingly limits secondary contact recreation opportunities. Currently, the World Fair
Marina tract - the only part of the waterfront that is publicly accessible - is used by
children and families for walking, jogging, riding and fishing (even when there
are physical and sanitary challenges to do so).

The Flushing Meadows-Corona Park serves as another large public space, not without
its challenges. According to the NYC Department of Parks and Recreation’s FMCP
Strategic Framework Plan, the park does not offer facilities for regular primary or
secondary contact recreation. The shallowness of the lakes does not allow for boat-
ing activities; this, along with the proliferation of algae and some lead and petroleum
contamination, has also limited the growth of a diverse fish habitat in the lakes.9

Understanding of Context: Sensitivities around Place and Relationships to Water

The contradictory relationships with the waterfront make it even more necessary
to develop an engagement process by watershed. Harboring a sense of ownership,
awareness and conservation based on the understanding of existing relationships
to water can help sustain the program and water conservation practices over time -
potentially even after the Wait! program is completed.

8
Estimates and graphics were prepared by authors, based on current satellite imagery
measurements and land use data from Flushing Creek’s Long Term Control Plan of 2014.
9
Flushing Meadows-Corona Park Strategic Framework Plan, 2008.