Building a data-driven framework to prioritize long-term environmental investment across a citywide lake system.
Orlando’s urban lakes are central to the City’s identity and function. They influence stormwater management, flood resilience, water quality, recreation, tourism, and the livability of surrounding neighborhoods.
Many lakes face nutrient enrichment, sediment accumulation, shoreline degradation, and watershed pressures driven by urban growth. At the same time, funding for restoration and improvement is limited.
City leaders needed a clear way to determine where investments would deliver the greatest long-term benefit. Without a structured strategy, resources risked being allocated based on short-term visibility rather than system-level impact.
The decisions would shape environmental performance as well as the community and economic value of an interconnected network of water bodies.
Drummond Carpenter built a citywide prioritization framework that combined environmental data, surface water analysis, and implementation feasibility, including:
We constructed a decision model that considered environmental need, regulatory drivers, cost-effectiveness, and practical implementation pathways rather than ranking lakes on any single factor.
The resulting framework gave the City a consistent way to compare needs across more than 80 lakes and prioritize investments based on environmental impact, community impact, and feasibility for improvement.
Urban lakes function as part of broader watershed systems. Improvements in one location can influence conditions elsewhere, while upstream pressures can undermine localized efforts.
The prioritization model brought together:
The model translated these inputs into a practical basis for funding and implementation decisions. More than 80 lakes were ranked according to their environmental impact, community impact, and feasibility for environmental improvement.
The framework gave the City a practical roadmap for directing limited resources toward improvements with the greatest potential benefit across its lake system.
With more than 80 urban lakes and limited resources for restoration and improvement, the City cannot address every need at once. Understanding where environmental need intersects with community impact and practical feasibility gives decision-makers a stronger basis for long-term investment.
By bringing those considerations into a repeatable framework, Drummond Carpenter helped the City of Orlando establish a more consistent way to prioritize improvements across its lake system.
