Cedar Key ShOREs Workshop Engages Community in Green Infrastructure Planning

The Cedar Key ShOREs (Shoreline Options for Resilience and Equity) research team, led by University of Florida Assistant Professor Jiayang Li, recently hosted a community workshop at the Cedar Key Art Center focused on green stormwater infrastructure design. The event served to implement community feedback into landscape planning—a central principle of Li’s research.

The team gathered feedback from local residents to promote transparency and ensure that community priorities align with project goals

Bachelor of Landscape Architecture students Ella Pishko and Desi Roch-Hernandez played a key role in the event by creating drawings, posters, and handouts to help communicate the proposed design concepts.

More than 20 community members participated in the workshop, reviewing and discussing potential Nature-based Solutions (NBS) aimed at strengthening Cedar Key’s resilience to shoreline erosion, sea level rise, and severe weather events. NBS strategies focus on working with the natural environment—using native materials and ecological processes—to create adaptive, sustainable responses to environmental threats.

Landscape design visualizations for the proposed projects

Professor Li developed a series of design visualizations specifically for the workshop. These visuals helped translate technical stormwater management strategies, such as pervious paving and curb cuts with retention basins, into familiar neighborhood settings. By contextualizing these solutions within everyday environments, the visualizations fostered meaningful dialogue and enabled participants to share preferences on design elements like planting palettes and material choices.

Learn more about the Spatial Justice Collective and check out a short video from the event on their Instagram page.

This project is funded by the Gulf Research Program of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine.