Citation:

Woznicki, S., K. Hondula, AND T. Jarnagin. Effectiveness of landscape‐based green infrastructure for stormwater management in suburban catchments. Hydrological Processes. John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., Indianapolis, IN, 32(15):2346-2361, (2018). https://doi.org/10.1002/hyp.13144

Impact/Purpose:

This study monitored catchment-scale runoff in recently developed suburban neighborhoods. The study was a contrast in alternative methods to stormwater management and development. One neighborhood installed distributed green infrastructure (vegetated swales) on each parcel, while the remaining neighborhoods used traditional curb-and-gutter stormwater control. We determined that the green infrastructure is effective in altering the runoff hydrograph by increasing runoff lag and decreasing runoff volume. However, its effectiveness diminishes as precipitation volume and intensity increase, demonstrating the need for a redundant network of stormwater control measures to achieve pre-development hydrologic conditions.

Description:

Land cover changes associated with urbanization have negative effects on downstream ecosystems. Contemporary urban development attempts to mitigate these effects by designing stormwater infrastructure to mimic predevelopment hydrology, but their performance is highly variable. This study used in situ monitoring of recently built neighbourhoods to evaluate the catchment‐scale effectiveness of landscape decentralized stormwater control measures (SCMs) in the form of street connected vegetated swales for reducing runoff volumes and flow rates relative to curb‐and‐gutter infrastructure. Effectiveness of the SCMs was quantified by monitoring runoff for 8 months at the outlets of 4 suburban catchments (0.76–5.25 ha) in Maryland, USA. Three “grey” catchments installed curb‐and‐gutter stormwater conveyances, whereas the fourth “green” catchment built parcel‐level vegetated swales. The catchment with decentralized SCMs reduced runoff, runoff ratio, and peak runoff compared with the grey infrastructure catchments. In addition, the green catchment delayed runoff, resulting in longer precipitation–runoff lag times. Runoff ratios across the monitoring period were 0.13 at the green catchment and 0.37, 0.35, and 0.18 at the 3 grey catchments. Runoff only commenced after 6 mm of precipitation at the decentralized SCM catchment, whereas runoff occurred even during the smallest events at the grey catchments. However, as precipitation magnitudes reached 20 mm, the green catchment runoff characteristics were similar to those at the grey catchments, which made up 37% of the total precipitation in only 10 of 72 events. Therefore, volume‐based reduction goals for stormwater using decentralized SCMs such as vegetated swales require additional redundant SCMs in a treatment train as source control and/or end‐of‐pipe detention to capture a larger fraction of runoff and more effectively mimic predevelopment hydrology for the relatively rare but larger precipitation events.

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