INDIANA UNIVERSITY PURDUE UNIVERSITY INDIANAPOLIS

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RESEARCH TEAM BUILDS URBAN FOREST

A team of IUPUI environmental scientists today began building a forest along a strip of urban riverbank near downtown Indianapolis.

The kilometer long strip of the eastern bank of the White River between 10th Street and New York Avenue will be restored to the way it looked nearly 200 years ago, with the branches of tall cottonwoods, sycamores, green ash and other trees stretching out above wild flowers and flowering plants.

This ribbon of riverbank floodplain will yield never-before gathered scientific data that will guide the way river banks are restored to a natural state, not only in Indianapolis, but for tens of thousands of acres up and down the Mississippi River Valley and across the United States.

Doing it the way Mother Nature would will yield a number of benefits, including cleaner water.

"Our plan is to build a forest," said Dr. Lenore Tedesco, director of IUPUI's Center for Earth and Environmental Science.

In the end, the Lilly ARBOR (Answers for Restoring the Bank of the River) Project will produce a stretch of riverbank that will match the best quality riverbank forest for 150 miles along the White River. Eli Lilly and Company is the primary sponsor of the project, reflecting the company's ongoing commitment to the environment and the community.

The IUPUI team, assisted by volunteers and students, planted three hundred trees today. They will plant three hundred trees tomorrow, and an additional 1,400 trees in the spring. After months of research of 1820 land records, 12 species of trees native to the cite were selected to be planted.

The massive outdoor laboratory project is under the direction of the Center for Earth and Environmental (CEES) Science at IUPUI, an interdisciplinary academic center that promotes environmental research, education, and public service. Each planted tree will be numbered and carefully monitored for at least five years, testing three commonly used methods of riverbank restoration.

Restoring riverbanks isn't new. Proving what works best over the long-term is. For the first time, the Lilly ARBOR Project will provide much needed answers to riverbank restoration project managers who, with limited funds, often have one shot at doing it right.

At the end of the five years, the Lilly ARBOR Project will have long-term data on survival of riverbank reforestation, something which doesn't exist anywhere today.

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