Landscape Architecture

The Flood Control District has made a commitment that new flood control projects not only help protect people and property from flooding hazards, but also provide beneficial opportunities for multi-purpose uses of flood control facilities. These benefits may include open space, increased protection for natural habitat, recreational facilities, and aesthetically pleasing designs that contribute to the environment of communities and revitalize urban areas.

Dams, retention basins, channels and outfalls built by the District throughout the County can have a major beneficial or negative impact on adjacent neighborhoods and natural areas depending on the design and management of these facilities.

Places for People

The planning and design of flood control facilities as "places for people" is a key issue and challenge facing the District. The rapid growth of urban development in recent years has been accompanied by increased public demand for the District to build more public value and benefits into its flood protection facilities. Increasingly, local citizens and community leaders are looking to the District to plan and design flood protection facilities in ways that will preserve natural desert open space, enhance local community image, and provide opportunities for desert greenbelts and new parklands for year-round recreation.

Landmark projects such as Indian Bend Wash, Tempe Town Lake and a host of others that include Freestone Park, Kiwanis Park, Old Cross Cut Canal and Falcon Dunes Golf Course demonstrate how flood control facilities can create aesthetic value, contribute a unique sense of identity and place to local communities, and provide a wide variety of open space opportunities and benefits for local citizens throughout the year.

The District routinely evaluates and implements a variety of non-structural and structural methods of providing flood protection. These flood protection methods vary in their physical and visual characteristics and in their ability to complement landscape setting. The ability of flood protection methods to complement the visual character of the settings in which they are situated largely depends upon the degree to which the visual characteristics of the flood protection method will contrast with the valued visual characteristics of the landscape setting.

Table 5-1 is a summary comparison of the characteristics of flood control structures, their components and the relative flood protection methods utilized.

In general, non-structural and soft structural methods of flood protection exhibit a higher ability to blend with and/or introduce positive variety into the widest range of landscape settings found within Maricopa County. Hard structural methods, in general, exhibit the most limited ability for blending and offer the greatest potential for introducing negative deviations into the landscape settings.

Aesthetic Treatment and Landscaping of Flood Control Projects

Growing public concern for preserving the visual beauty of the urban, rural and natural settings in Maricopa County prompted the Board of Directors of the Flood Control District to adopt the Policy for the Aesthetic Treatment and Landscaping of Flood Control Projects in 1992. This policy provides general guidance and direction for the integration of landscape aesthetic features and recreation multi-use opportunities into the planning, design, construction and operation of flood control facilities by the District. The policy applies to the design of new structures and to existing structures that do not already include aesthetic features.

The policy addresses the following key points:

• Promotes the preservation of Sonoran Desert natural landscapes and protection of local community character
• Authorizes expenditure of District funds for inclusion of landscaping and aesthetic features, and acquisition of right-of-way to provide for such features
• Promotes full integration of aesthetic features, and multi-use opportunities in all phases of planning and design of District flood control facilities
• Requires use of Aesthetic Advisory Committees, comprised of public interest groups, stakeholders, and landscape aesthetics professionals, to provide project review and oversight
• Requires the development of landscape themes for flood control structures that will help preserve natural landscape character and/or complement and enhance local community character.

Landscape Inventory and Analysis for Maricopa County

The Landscape Inventory and Analysis for Maricopa County is a regional assessment of cultural and biological resources within the County that has been developed by the Flood Control District. The assessment includes inventories and studies of scenery, recreation, and open space resources. It also includes assessments of the relative compatibility of these resources with a variety of flood protection methods that are routinely applied by the District in delivering flood hazard mitigation services and facilities to the citizens of Maricopa County.

The Landscape Inventory and Analysis for Maricopa County was undertaken by the District to assist in the planning and design of its facilities to achieve "context sensitivity" with the surroundings in which they may be located. The assessment is intended to serve as a tool for broad-scale regional planning studies and a framework for more detailed studies of scenic resources that are undertaken as a part of flood control project planning and design.

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