Green Infrastructure Performance in Stormwater Quality
Location
Eccles Conference Center Auditorium
Event Website
http://water.usu.edu
Start Date
3-31-2015 10:30 AM
End Date
3-31-2015 10:40 AM
Description
Green infrastructure (GI) design has been advocated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an ecological way to manage stormwater for better water quantity and quality. This new drainage design paradigm focuses on maintaining the natural hydrologic cycle and suggests treating runoff on-site in lieu of the old paradigm that prefers off-site treatment. Current literature suggests the performance benefits of GI design; however, there is a regional disparity in respect to number of GI projects reported, level of sophistication in design, available design guidelines, and policy endorsement. The arid Intermountain West in the U.S. is a fast growing region, and has yet to be at the forefront of this national movement toward GI design. This study reports the performance benefits of GI design implemented in Daybreak, a 4,100-acre master-planned community in Utah. Daybreak is known as one of the largest GI projects in the arid West. Its GI design retains 100 percent of stormwater that falls on-site for up to a 100-year storm with no impacts on or connections to the municipal storm sewer system. Further, an ongoing water quality monitoring study is comparing the hydrologic performance of two sub watersheds within the community, one of which implements GI, while the other takes a more traditional approach to stormwater management. Impervious surfaces were identified in ArcMap to assess the extent of impacts on the natural hydrologic cycle in the sub watersheds. Preliminary results show the performance benefits of a large bioswale in the GI sub-watershed. Streamflow data were collected by ISCO 750 flow meters and water quality samples at discrete precipitation events by ISCO 6712 samplers. The benefits of the GI approach include substantial reductions of stormwater runoff volume and pollutant concentrations, such as nitrate+nitrite nitrogen (NO3–N), total nitrogen (TN), ammonia nitrogen (NH3–N), total phosphorus (TP), total suspended solids (TSS), and heavy metals (Copper, Zinc, Lead).
Green Infrastructure Performance in Stormwater Quality
Eccles Conference Center Auditorium
Green infrastructure (GI) design has been advocated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency as an ecological way to manage stormwater for better water quantity and quality. This new drainage design paradigm focuses on maintaining the natural hydrologic cycle and suggests treating runoff on-site in lieu of the old paradigm that prefers off-site treatment. Current literature suggests the performance benefits of GI design; however, there is a regional disparity in respect to number of GI projects reported, level of sophistication in design, available design guidelines, and policy endorsement. The arid Intermountain West in the U.S. is a fast growing region, and has yet to be at the forefront of this national movement toward GI design. This study reports the performance benefits of GI design implemented in Daybreak, a 4,100-acre master-planned community in Utah. Daybreak is known as one of the largest GI projects in the arid West. Its GI design retains 100 percent of stormwater that falls on-site for up to a 100-year storm with no impacts on or connections to the municipal storm sewer system. Further, an ongoing water quality monitoring study is comparing the hydrologic performance of two sub watersheds within the community, one of which implements GI, while the other takes a more traditional approach to stormwater management. Impervious surfaces were identified in ArcMap to assess the extent of impacts on the natural hydrologic cycle in the sub watersheds. Preliminary results show the performance benefits of a large bioswale in the GI sub-watershed. Streamflow data were collected by ISCO 750 flow meters and water quality samples at discrete precipitation events by ISCO 6712 samplers. The benefits of the GI approach include substantial reductions of stormwater runoff volume and pollutant concentrations, such as nitrate+nitrite nitrogen (NO3–N), total nitrogen (TN), ammonia nitrogen (NH3–N), total phosphorus (TP), total suspended solids (TSS), and heavy metals (Copper, Zinc, Lead).
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/runoff/2015/2015Posters/29