Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Community-enabled Lifecycle Analysis of Stormwater Infrastructure Costs (CLASIC)
EPA Grant Number: R836173Title: Community-enabled Lifecycle Analysis of Stormwater Infrastructure Costs (CLASIC)
Investigators: Zhang, Harry , Sharvelle, Sybil , Throwe, Joanne M , Pomeroy, Christine , Buzzard, Angela
Institution: Water Research Foundation , Colorado State University , University of Maryland - College Park , University of Utah , Wichita State University
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: April 1, 2016 through March 31, 2020 (Extended to March 31, 2021)
Project Amount: $1,949,785
RFA: National Priorities: Life Cycle Costs of Water Infrastructure Alternatives (2015) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Water Quality , Water , Water Treatment
Objective:
The goal of the CLASIC decision support system is to develop a robust and peer-reviewed life cycle cost (LCC) framework for both green and gray stormwater infrastructure alternatives that can accommodate regional and smaller scale variations for integrated planning at a municipal scale. Users can create scenarios of stormwater control measures including climate and land use projections to assess lifecycle costs, performance, and triple bottom line (TBL) benefits associated with those scenarios.
This goal is accomplished through five integrated objectives:
- LCC framework development for an integrated, standardized approach.
- Data collection of existing data sources on construction, operations, maintenance, and replacement costs of green and gray infrastructure solutions based on protocols and structure.
- Data analysis and standardization to analyze, standardize, and compile the data collected in a relational database with a structure consistent with the LCC framework that can be used to support the tool development.
- Decision support tools that are made publicly available in an enduring and enabling platform for use by the urban water community that works easily at scale, fosters innovation, and promotes collaboration.
- Community engagement to ensure all products developed are scientifically sound, accurately reflect community needs, and are supported and implemented by end users.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
CLASIC is a user-informed screening tool that utilizes a LCC framework to support implementation of stormwater infrastructure, including green, hybrid green-gray, and gray infrastructure practices.
Expected users of the CLASIC tool include managers and operators of regulated stormwater systems (e.g., municipalities, counties, cities, and utilities), consultants, academics, and others.
The LCC analysis framework and life stages align closely with the types of decisions and analysis relevant to CLASIC target users. This focus emphasizes performance as it relates to a clearly-defined geographic area and the reality of both capital and operational budget constraints. LCC assists in understanding how varying the allocation of resources across life stages impacts the overall performance. The innovation that the LCC analysis method in the CLASIC tool provides to its municipal stormwater audience is not only the coupling of cost and performance of stormwater BMP scenarios, but also makes explicit the importance of management decisions such as maintenance choices on total lifetime costs.
The features of the CLASIC decision support system that are unique relative to existing tools are:
- The CLASIC tool is hosted on a cloud-based web platform (eRAMS; https://clasic.erams.com/) so that it is fully interfaced with GIS and links with national databases at a community level (e.g., a city, county or watershed);
- The CLASIC tool has incorporated the rigorous LCC analysis framework to integrate institutional context, financing strategies and programmatic objectives by collaborating with two of EPA’s Environmental Finance Centers (EFCs);
- The CLASIC tool integrates multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) that enables consideration of TBL benefits for green infrastructure based on rigorous assessment of life cycle costs and co-benefits.
Users can select from a variety of green and/or gray stormwater practices. The practices / technologies in the CLASIC tool are categorized according to deployment strategy and primary technology function.
- Volume-based filtration technologies (e.g., rain gardens, grass swales, infiltration trenches and sand filters);
- Volume-based detention technologies (e.g., extended detention basins and wet ponds);
- Volume-based reclamation/storage technologies (e.g., stormwater harvesting and storage vaults/tunnels);
- Area-based filtration/volume reduction technologies (e.g., green roofs, permeable pavement and vegetated buffers).
The CLASIC decision support system allows users to build and compare multiple stormwater infrastructure options and enables simulation of various climate scenarios. Specifically, the CLASIC tool has incorporated a multivariate adaptive constructed analogs (MACA) method for simulating climate scenarios in the tool platform.
The TBL benefits of green infrastructure in CLASIC tool and WRF-supported companion tool include (a) economic benefits such as avoided infrastructure costs, asset life extension and energy savings; (b) environmental benefits such as water quality and associated habitat improvements, ecosystem benefits, and carbon reduction and decreased greenhouse gas (GHG) emission; (c) social benefits such as public health benefits associated with reduced urban heat stress and improved air quality, flood risk reduction, increased water supply through stormwater capture and harvesting, improved urban aesthetics and community livability, improved recreational opportunities through increased green space, and green job creation.
Case study applications have been included to showcase the variety of ways that the web-based CLASIC tool can assist communities with stormwater project planning and decision making. Ten CLASIC case studies provided to date cover all climate regions and communities of different sizes (i.e., large, medium and small) along with climate scenario simulations. CLASIC outputs are displayed in an immersive set of charts, graphs, and tables that can be analyzed, printed, and shared.
Conclusions:
In summary, there are three integrated components in the CLASIC decision support system: (a) LCC; (b) performance; and (c) TBL benefits. The three main outputs from the CLASIC tool are: life cycle costs, performance of stormwater infrastructure; and results from TBL benefits. The LCC will inform considerations of green and gray infrastructure scenarios selected by the user. The TBL analysis is informed via MCDA output, which provides quantitative output to compare co-benefits across scenarios of technology selection. The TBL analysis can be used along with a companion tool developed by the WRF research team entitled “Economic Framework and Tools for Quantifying and Monetizing the Triple Bottom Line Benefits of Green Stormwater Infrastructure”. The three outputs from the CLASIC tool work synergistically to inform decisions on scenarios for holistic stormwater management at a community level.
Journal Articles on this Report : 1 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other project views: | All 27 publications | 1 publications in selected types | All 1 journal articles |
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Type | Citation | ||
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Dell T, Razzaghmanesh M, Sharvelle S, Arabi M. Development and Application of a SWMM-Based Simulation Model for Municipal Scale Hydrologic Assessments. Water 2021;13(12):1644. |
R836173 (Final) |
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Supplemental Keywords:
Stormwater Management, Green Infrastructure, Gray Infrastructure, Cloud Technology, Database, Life Cycle Costs, Triple Bottom Line, Co-Benefits, Integrated Planning Framework, One Water, Integrated Urban Water ManagementProgress and Final Reports:
Original AbstractThe perspectives, information and conclusions conveyed in research project abstracts, progress reports, final reports, journal abstracts and journal publications convey the viewpoints of the principal investigator and may not represent the views and policies of ORD and EPA. Conclusions drawn by the principal investigators have not been reviewed by the Agency.
Project Research Results
- 2019 Progress Report
- 2018 Progress Report
- 2017 Progress Report
- 2016 Progress Report
- Original Abstract
1 journal articles for this project