Developing Low-Impact Urban Roadsides with Sustainable Landscape Management in Houston, Texas

Urban roadside soils are highly disturbed and manipulated with levels of compaction, specified moisture content and little or no organic matter. This disturbed soil is subject to the heat generated by the surrounding pavements and pollutants produced by traffic, all of which can adversely affect the biological processes of the adjacent soil and vegetation. The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is implementing roadside landscape design and management alternatives that can reduce the energy expended in the maintenance of right-of-way landscape development. These techniques use the environmental processes found in natural, self-sustaining and self-sufficient plant communities shown to minimize and restore development impacts on soil thereby reducing peak storm flows, increasing runoff filtration, infiltration and storage. This case study of TxDOT’s Houston District outlines their techniques of major soil modifications as part of urban roadside landscape development. Commonly found non-chemical soil amendments and additives are used to rehabilitate the urban roadside environment to simulate a naturally occurring sustainable system found in undisturbed landscapes. Many alternative landscape management practices used by the public and private sectors translate well to urban roadside landscapes.