University of Waterloo Living Labs
This project develops the Campus Stormwater Management Living Lab at the University of Waterloo as a hands-on research and data sharing platform focused on environmental monitoring. The work connects (but is not limited to) hydrology, geotechnical engineering, and urban water systems theory to real-world infrastructure by monitoring existing features on campus.
There are three key components of the Campus Living Lab project:
Data Collection
Visible Signage
Data Dissemination
High-resolution data on runoff, soil behaviour, and water quality will be collected and used in undergraduate and graduate courses, where students apply GIS analysis, hydrologic and hydraulic modelling, and performance evaluation to active systems rather than hypothetical designs. In parallel, the project addresses persistent campus flooding and increasing climate-driven rainfall variability by generating long-term datasets to inform future stormwater retrofits and climate-resilience planning. Public-facing signage and digital data platforms extend the impact beyond the classroom by improving sustainability literacy and showcasing low-impact development in practice, and encouraging citizen science. Together, the living lab supports applied research, strengthens experiential engineering education, and provides actionable evidence for nature-based stormwater management in dense institutional environments.
This project is ongoing, with field monitoring, data analysis, and educational integration underway. Upcoming phases will introduce installation of new instrumentation, expanded datasets, and applied design insights, with updates shared as the work continues to evolve. The project’s framework can be further expanded to incorporate multiple initiatives that support the living lab ideology.
This work is funded by the University of Waterloo’s Pearl Sullivan IDEA’s Clinic Funding for new activities on campus, and is a collaboration between the River Hydraulics Research Group, Global Environmental Monitoring and Measurement (GEMM), and IDEA’s Clinic.
More Information:
Access Data Here: http://datahub.uwaterloo.ca (Note: must be connected to UW Network)