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Abstract. Teaching evapotranspiration (ET) in university courses often focuses on either oversimplified process descriptions or complex empirical calculations, both of which lack grounding in students' real-world experiences and prior knowledge. This calls for a more applied approach to teaching about ET that connects concepts to experience for improved educational outcomes. One such opportunity exists at the intersections between ET and heat in cities, where a growing majority of the world's population lives, including many of our students. In this work we describe an ET educational activity that integrates theory with practical design, taking advantage of the close link between ET processes and urban heat patterns. In a benchtop experiment, students measure ET variations across common land surfaces (e.g., asphalt, grass, and mulch) through water and energy balance approaches. The experiment is paired with an “urban heat tour” in the campus environment, facilitated by portable infrared cameras, offering firsthand observation of urban heat patterns. These two activities, together, provide context in which students can understand the difference in ET across various land covers, describe the relationship between ET and land surface temperatures, and explain the impacts of urban design on heat dynamics. The activities are adaptable to serve a diversity of student backgrounds and to different educational contexts, including public demonstrations and pre-university classrooms. 

Abstract Decades of research has concluded that the percent of impervious surface cover in a watershed is strongly linked to negative impacts on urban stream health. Recently, there has been a push by municipalities to offset these effects by installing structural stormwater control measures (SCMs), which are landscape features designed to retain and reduce runoff to mitigate the effects of urbanisation on event hydrology. The goal of this study is to build generalisable relationships between the level of SCM implementation in urban watersheds and resulting changes to hydrology. A literature review of 185 peer‐reviewed studies of watershed‐scale SCM implementation across the globe was used to identify 52 modelling studies suitable for a meta‐analysis to build statistical relationships between SCM implementation and hydrologic change. Hydrologic change is quantified as the percent reduction in storm event runoff volume and peak flow between a watershed with SCMs relative to a (near) identical control watershed without SCMs. Results show that for each additional 1% of SCM‐mitigated impervious area in a watershed, there is an additional 0.43% reduction in runoff and a 0.60% reduction in peak flow. Values of SCM implementation required to produce a change in water quantity metrics were identified at varying levels of probability. For example, there is a 90% probability (high confidence) of at least a 1% reduction in peak flow with mitigation of 33% of impervious surfaces. However, as the reduction target increases or mitigated impervious surface decreases, the probability of reaching the reduction target also decreases. These relationships can be used by managers to plan SCM implementation at the watershed scale.