urban water issues - steve rodie, associate professor, agronomy and horticulture, unl
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Steve Rodie, Associate Professor, Agronomy and Horticulture, UNLTRANSCRIPT
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?