Green Infrastructure Research Facility (GIRF)

Green Infrastructure Research Facility (GIRF) was part of iUTAH’s larger innovative Biogeochemistry of Urban Green Infrastructure (iBUGI) effort which was a spatially distributed facility with integrated capacity to understand how coupled urban water and biogeochemistry processes operate over both short- and long-term time scales and through both atmospheric and surface/deep water flow paths. The GIRF facility, located on the University of Utah’s Salt Lake City campus, was an engineered infrastructure designed to include green infrastructure. The goal of GIRF was to collect, examine, and monitor surface water quality at a neighborhood scale. The facility included eight bioretention systems for stormwater runoff measurement and the capacity to observe how different designs affect biogeochemistry and evaporation processes and reduce both surface water and groundwater. Data gathered at this facility was used to facilitate a better understanding of urban water behavior and to aid in human decision making at the municipal, business, and residential parcel scales.