urban water issues - steve rodie, associate professor, agronomy and horticulture, unl

Steven N. Rodie, FASLAAssoc. Professor/Landscape Horticulture Specialist Department of Agronomy/Horticulture Department of Biology

Landscape Architecture Program Environmental Studies Program University of Nebraska-Lincoln University of Nebraska at Omaha

Changing Paradigms in Stormwater Management

Implementing a Sustainable Future in Nebraska: Urban Water Issues

September 25, 2013

Overview Stormwater management – Why? Sustainable stormwater management – How?

Changing the paradigm• Green Infrastructure• Low Impact Development (LID)• Best Management Practices (BMPs)

Why should stormwater be managed?

Water issues Quantity (flooding, drought) Quality (contaminants and temperature)

Stormwater regulations (Clean Water Act) National Pollution Discharge Elimination

System (NPDES) Permits - Phases I and II

Communities with Combined Sewer Overflows (CSO)

Photo: University of Nebraska - Kearney Platte River Page

We All Live in a Watershed

Graphic: Arkansas Watershed Advisory Group

Omaha CSO Project $1.66 billion (2011 Dollars); complete 2027 Avg. residential sewer rates to $50/mo. by 2017 Deep tunnel

• 5.4 miles long, 170 ft. deep, 17 ft. diameter • 25% of project budget….can we make it smaller?

http://www.epa.gov/heatisland/resources/pdf/WayeHotRunoff.pdf

$$$

How is Stormwater Sustainably Managed?

Paradigm Shift

Working with nature vs. controlling nature?

http://www.epa.gov/epaoswer/non-hw/green/pubs/asla-water.pdf

When I am working on a problem I never think about beauty. I only think about how to solve the problem. But when I have finished, if the solution is not beautiful, I know it is wrong. Designer, architect, author and

visionary R. Buckminster Fuller

http://www.epa.gov/heatisland/resources/pdf/WayeHotRunoff.pdf

Paradigm : “..a philosophical and theoretical framework of a scientific school or discipline…” Merriam Webster Online

Look deep into nature, and then you will understand everything better.

Albert Einstein

Look Like Nature…..

Critical to understand client and public biases and expectation for natural landscape character

“Well-behaved” nature physically possible? potentially high

maintenance and inputs

“Natural” nature – no maintenance typically not an option

but not too much…..

Massing/Defined Edges

Relatively Low Plants/Seasonal Interest

The Best Management Solution:

1)Don’t create impervious surfaces

2) If surfaces are created, reduce their coverage and/or imperviousness

3) See #1 above

Green Infrastructure

is the interconnected network of open spaces and natural areas, such as greenways, wetlands, parks, forest preserves and native plant vegetation, that naturally manages stormwater, reduces flooding risk and improves water quality. (http://greenvalues.cnt.org/green-infrastructure)

Taken for granted as public benefits, ecosystem services (air and water purification, flood and climate regulation, biodiversity, scenic resources, etc.) lack a formal market and are traditionally absent from society’s balance sheet. As a result, their critical contributions are overlooked in public, corporate and individual decision-making.

http://www.fs.fed.us/ecosystemservices/pdf/ecosystem-services.pdf

http://www.stormh2o.com/july-august-2006/green-stormwater-ecosystem.aspx

Low Impact Development (LID)

is an innovative stormwater management approach …modeled after nature: manage rainfall at the source using uniformly distributed decentralized micro-scale controls. LID's goal is to mimic a site's predevelopment hydrology.

http://greenvalues.cnt.org/green-infrastructure

http://www.epa.gov/ne/topics/water/lid.html

http://www.swircd.org/pdf/conservation%20subdivision%20design%20handbook.pdf

Low Impact Development

The EPA defines a storm water Best Management Practice as a "technique, measure or structural control that is used for a given set of conditions to manage the quantity and improve the quality of storm water runoff in the most cost-effective manner."

http://www.safedrain.com/stormwater-bmp

Site: Omaha Sewer Maintenance Facility (68th and Q)

Completion: Spring 2014

Funding, Design and Research: EPA ORD and Region 7; USGS; City of Omaha; Olsson & Assoc.; Felsburg Holt Ullevig; UNL Extension

Potential Benefits – Green Infrastructure and Low

Impact Development

Improve water quality runoffLessen runoff quantities Lessen runoff time of concentrationAdd significant value to community

landscape aestheticsReduce infrastructure costs

Turning Potential Benefits into Real Benefits

Green stormwater management must be Politically supportedClient-embraced and understoodSite-specificWell-designedWell-constructedWell-maintained

Questions?