Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Washington State Phase I County Watershed-Scale Stormwater Planning Studies: A Long Term Plan To Identify Stormwater Management Strategies To Improve Receiving Waters, Dan Gariépy, Andy Rheaume

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Washington State Department of Ecology’s 2013-2018 NPDES Municipal Stormwater permittees conducted detailed hydrologic modeling studies to demonstrate how planned development could be accommodated while restoring the beneficial and designated uses to the receiving waters in urbanized watersheds. The jurisdictions used modeling tools including HSPF hydrologic modeling, in-stream ecological targets, and cost optimization tool to determine the most cost effective set of infrastructure to achieve in-stream ecological targets). This talk focusses on the lessons learned from those plans, looking across the plans for similarities and differences. Each of the four counties (Snohomish, King, Pierce, Clark) selected a medium sized (10+ square …

Constructing A Multi-Jurisdictional Watershed-Scale Stormwater And Habitat Recovery Plan For Bear Creek, Jeff Burkey, Timothy Clark

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

King County recently finalized the Bear Creek Watershed-scale Stormwater Management Plan. Bear Creek has impaired water quality and hydrology and degraded instream, riparian, and wetland habitats. The Bear Creek watershed includes several jurisdictions, including two cities and two counties. King County and its partners held several public and technical meetings to receive and incorporate feedback from watershed residents, tribes, non-governmental organizations, and state agencies. King County led the collaborative effort to evaluate existing water quality, hydrological, and habitat conditions, model future conditions based on forecasted growth and development, and recommend actions and strategies to achieve the defined watershed goals. Recommended …

Integrated Watershed Planning For Freshwater Sustainability On Salt Spring Island, Bc, Canada, William Shulba, Justine C. Starke

Salish Sea Ecosystem Conference

Island freshwater ecosystems in the Salish Sea have unique challenges. Fractured bedrock aquifers, limited surface water resources, and saltwater intrusion into groundwater systems require best management practices for freshwater sustainability. Salt Spring Island is the largest Canadian Gulf Island in the Salish Sea. With a population of 10,000 residents that triples in the summer, Salt Spring Island’s water resources are under great stress. However, through the creation of the multi-lateral Salt Spring Island Watershed Protection Authority (SSIWPA), the island is now positioned to create one of the first Water Sustainability Plans in British Columbia under the new Water Sustainability Act …

Enhancing Watershed Planning In Implementation Of The Colorado Water Plan: An Overview Of Implementation Challenges And Opportunities, Douglas S. Kenney

Books, Reports, and Studies

25 pages.

Introduction -- Review of existing efforts -- Summary of interviews -- The salience of funding -- Recommendations -- Attachment A: Summary of reviewed watershed plans.

Assessing Downstream Stormwater Impacts For Urban Watershed Planning, Johanna Meyer Pavlowsky

Masters Theses

"The urbanization of watersheds has caused debilitating effects to downstream aquatic ecosystems in catchments and streams. The implementation of green infrastructure (GI), such as permeable pavements and bioretention facilities, has been shown to alleviate these effects by both reducing runoff and mitigating pollutants; however, the implements are often not designed with a specific goal of water improvement. This study targets understanding a small, impaired urban watershed, and the benefits green infrastructure may have to provide environmental, social, and economic improvement to the watershed.

Portions of Rolla including much of the S&T campus drain into the impaired urban waterbody Frisco Lake, …

Slides: Gwc Review Report, Larry Macdonnell

Innovations in Managing Western Water: New Approaches for Balancing Environmental, Social and Economic Outcomes (Martz Summer Conference, June 11-12)

Presenter: Larry MacDonnell, University of Colorado Law School

12 slides

Navigating A Pathway Toward Colorado's Water Future: A Review And Recommendations On Colorado's Draft Water Plan, Lawrence J. Macdonnell, Colorado Water Working Group

Books, Reports, and Studies

40 pages (includes color illustrations).

User Modeling And Personalized Optimization For Stakeholder-Driven Watershed Design, Meghna Babbar-Sebens, Adriana Debora Piemonti, Snehasis Mukhopadhyay, Vidya Bhushan Singh

International Conference on Hydroinformatics

We have developed a web-based, interactive, watershed planning system called WRESTORE (Watershed Restoration Using Spatio-Temporal Optimization of Resources) (http://wrestore.iupui.edu) that allows stake-holder communities to participate in a democratic, collaborative form of optimization process for designing best management practices (BMPs) on their landscape, while also optimizing based on subjective, qualitative landowners’ criteria beyond the usual socio-economic, physical, and ecological criteria. This system utilizes multiple advanced computational approaches including the SWAT (Soil and Water Assessment Tool) hydrologic model for watershed simulations, interactive genetic algorithms and reinforcement-based machine learning algorithms for search and optimization, and deep learning artificial neural networks for user modeling, …

Local Surface Water Policy Under Conditions Of Climate Change, Elizabeth Brabec, Elisabeth Hamin, Chingwen Cheng

Elizabeth Brabec

Climate change means two things for local stormwater managers – that storm events will become more severe, and rainfall will, in many instances, become more erratic, causing enhanced periods of drought and flood. Two approaches are needed to deal with the eventualities: mitigation and adaptation.

While urbanization increases stormwater runoff and decreases the lag time of stormwater discharge, there is also a resulting lack of infiltration and reduction in evapotranspiration (Brunke and Gonser 1997). Stormwater detention, retention and infiltration have attempted to compensate, resulting in the concentrated point location infiltration of stormwater, which replenishes groundwater and baseflow. Equally important to …

Land Planning And Development Mitigation For Protecting Water Quality In The Great Lakes System: An Evaluation Of Us Approaches, Elizabeth Brabec, Peter Kumble

Elizabeth Brabec

Since 1978, studies by the International Joint Commission (the bi-national commission mandated to protect the Great Lakes) have shown increasing water quality stress due to urban non-point source pollution. The key question for the IJC today, as an international commission with no direct enforcement power, is how the IJC can be effective in getting the parties and their jurisdictions to improve management of non-point source pollution issues when the land use trigger is primarily a local government issue. To begin to answer this question, the primary objective of this current study is to assemble the latest data and analysis on …

Impervious Surfaces And Water Quality: A Review Of Current Literature And Its Implications For Watershed Planning, Elizabeth Brabec

Elizabeth Brabec

Impervious surfaces have for many years been recognized as an indicator of the intensity of the urban environment and, with the advent of urban sprawl, they have become a key issue in habitat health. Although a considerable amount of research has been done to define impervious thresholds for water quality degradation, there are a number of flaws in the assumptions and methodologies used. Given refinement of the methodology, accurate and usable parameters for preventative watershed planning can be developed, which include impervious surface thresholds and a balance between pervious and impervious surfaces within a watershed.

Kentucky River Basin Management Plan, Kentucky Water Resources Research Institute

KWRRI Research Reports

This report summarizes how agency activities will be coordinated in the Kentucky River basin during the fiver year cycle beginning in July 2002. It sets out the criteria and processes that guide state and federal programs to take particular actions.

Fragmentation, Impervious Surfaces And Water Quality: Quantifying The Effects Of Density And Spatial Arrangement, Elizabeth Brabec, Paul Richards, Stacey Schulte

Elizabeth Brabec

Impervious surfaces have for many years been recognized as an indicator of the intensity of the urban environment and, with the advent of urban sprawl, they have become a key issue in habitat health. In addition to the direct impacts to water quality, impervious surfaces fragment open space and habitat and are therefore a primary land use indicator of both water quality and ecological degradation. This paper develops an understanding of the land use planning implications of the interaction of impervious surfaces, water quality and the spatial form those surfaces take in a watershed. In order to clarify these relationships, …