Hydrologic and soil data associated with selected vacant deconstruction lots in St. Louis, Missouri, 2018-2020

As the urban landscape and municipal infrastructure in U.S. cities changes in response to socio-economic conditions, so does the manner in which water cycles through these cities. The modulation of hydrologic processes (e.g., runoff, infiltration, evapotranspiration) by land use and land cover has implications for resilience, sustainability, and optimizing municipal service functions. The U.S. Geological Survey and U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, collaborated to address the question of how Legacy (standard) and recent (Urban Greening Program or "Green") vacant lots – different approaches to the widespread practice of demolition – differ in terms of how they cycle water and the extent to which they play a role in regulating the resiliency of the landscape to rainfall forcing. The intent of the data collection effort was to build on baseline data and expand on monitoring and field work that can help guide St. Louis as they deploy improved demolition practices and explore potential differences in the hydrologic response of Legacy and Green vacant lots. Such guidance would be generalizable to other cities who use demolition to control blight and facilitate redevelopment.
The potential hydrologic responses of Legacy and Green demolitions result from differences in the approach. Legacy demolitions retain the structure foundation but the walls are taken to 12 inches below grade and the floor of the foundation is broken into pieces less than 8 feet with cracks sufficient to allow drainage. Clean fill from multiple sources is placed on top of the Legacy demolitions to a depth of at least 6 inches. Green demolitions require full material removal including the foundation. There is a single source of alluvial fill material that is placed on top of the demolition site to a depth of at least 12 inches.