Grantee Research Project Results
2015 Progress Report: Center for Green Infrastructure and Stormwater Management
EPA Grant Number: R835142Center: Center for Integrated Multi‐scale Nutrient Pollution Solutions
Center Director: Shortle, James S.
Title: Center for Green Infrastructure and Stormwater Management
Investigators: Echols, Stuart Patton , Orland, Brian A , Royer, Matthew B , Ready, Richard C , Clark, Shirley E , Gray, Barbara L , Shortle, James S. , Duffy, Christopher
Current Investigators: Echols, Stuart Patton , Orland, Brian A , Royer, Matthew B , Ready, Richard C , Clark, Shirley E , Gray, Barbara L , Shortle, James S. , Saacke-Blunk, Kristen , Wagener, Thorsten
Institution: Pennsylvania State University
EPA Project Officer: Packard, Benjamin H
Project Period: March 1, 2012 through February 28, 2018
Project Period Covered by this Report: March 19, 2015 through February 8,2016
Project Amount: $2,173,026
RFA: Sustainable Chesapeake: A Collaborative Approach to Urban Stormwater Management (2011) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: Congressionally Mandated Center , Sustainable and Healthy Communities , Water
Objective:
The Center will conduct well-integrated, interdisciplinary research to understand and influence how decisions are made at multiple levels to improve planning, design, adoption, and the successful and sustainable implementation of innovative stormwater management systems to protect and restore the Chesapeake Bay. The Center will use a variety of inquiry methods, data types, analysis systems and community engagement to build the body of information that will reframe and reduce institutional barriers for innovations in stormwater management through the adoption and implementation of green infrastructure.
Progress Summary:
- The project was presented at the meeting of our Center's Scientific Advisors (organized by the overall project) in May in Harrisburg.
- Calibration and testing of the Conestoga watershed model in south-central PA has been the focus of this year's effort. The watershed included agricultural, forest, suburban, urban and urbanizing land use-land cover types. Initial simulations for the Conestoga watershed utilized climate Reanalysis period (hourly data for 1979-Present). We have developed a multi-state variable calibration that utilizes streamflow, groundwater level records, as well as a strategy to assimilate wetland and pond surface elevations into the calibration procedure.
Activities During Year Four:
- An interview methodology was used to gather data for the Project 1 Report. We conducted a total of 33 interviews. Because some interviews involved multiple people, the total number of people interviewed was 40. Interviewees fall into the following stakeholder categories: local government supervisors and planning staff, state regulators, conservation commissions, developers, citizen advocacy groups (for and against regulation), consulting engineers who design stormwater management systems, homeowners’ associations and technical advisory groups.
- Analysis of interviews was conducted to identiy several frames that stakeholders interested in SWM (Stormwater Management) have adopted in their descriptions of SWM practices. Frames are mindsets, schemas, worldviews, psychological biases that shape how stakeholders view an issue of problem and that enable them to justify their actions with respect to the problem (Dewulf et al., 2009; Gray, 2003). People use frames to define whether a problem exists how to define it and what to do about it (Vaughan & Seifert, 1992; Gray, 2003).
- The major objective of this research is to implement a high resolution, spatially explicit watershed model that resolves the local effects of current and projected stormwater practices at a watershed within the Chesapeake Bay Watershed region and to test the relative performance of green infrastructure practices as a function of surrounding land cover, position in the watershed, soil type and soil conditions. Our approach to modeling of green infrastructure design involves a spatially explicit, multi-process strategy for assessing and simulating water quantity and quality impacts of urban stormwater flooding, soil degradation and the role of altered residence times of contaminants and flooding on the urban landscape as well as the larger watershed in which it exists.
Future Activities:
Both land use and climate change will affect the water cycle within a watershed and the local water balance will play an important role in the effectiveness of GI, including the hydrologic impacts on: permeable urban pavement, retention ponds and bioretention, extended detention basins, constructed and natural wetlands, affect of land cover and changing land cover, etc. We will test the hydrological performance of hypothetical Green Infrastructure practices using a probabilistic framework presently under development. A matrix of potential practices and the favorable/unfavorable hydrologic, soil, geologic and topographic conditions is currently being developed. We are also in the process of designing GIS overlays for automatically extracting hydrologic performance information for evaluating the sensitivity of GI practices and visualization of results over the catchment.
References:
Dewulf, A., Gray, B., Putnam, L., Aarts, N., Lewicki, R., Bouwen, R. & van Woerkum, C. 2009. Disentangling approaches to framing: A metaparadigmatic perspective. Human Relations, 62 (2): 155-193.
Gray, B. 1989. Collaborating: Finding common ground for multiparty problems. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass.
Gray, B. Framing. In R. Lewicki, B. Gray & M. Elliott, Making Sense of Intractable Environmental Conflict. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
Lewicki, R., Gray, B. & Elliott, M. 2003. Making sense of intractable environmental conflict. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
Vaughan, E. & Siefert, M. Variability in the framing of risks. J. Social Issues, 48 (4): 119-135.
Wondolleck, J. & Yaffee, S. 2000. Making collaboration work: Lessons from innovation in Natural Resource Management. Washington, D.C.: Island Press.
Journal Articles: 3 Displayed | Download in RIS Format
Other center views: | All 22 publications | 5 publications in selected types | All 3 journal articles |
---|
Type | Citation | ||
---|---|---|---|
|
Leonard L, Duffy CJ. Essential Terrestrial Variable data workflows for distributed water resources modeling. Environmental Modelling & Software 2013;50:85-96. |
R835142 (2013) R835142 (2015) R835142 (Final) |
Exit Exit Exit |
|
Yu X, Bhatt G, Duffy C, Shi Y. Parameterization for distributed watershed modeling using national data and evolutionary algorithm. Computers & Geosciences 2013:58;80-90. |
R835142 (2015) R835142 (Final) |
Exit Exit Exit |
|
Yu X, Duffy C, Zhang Y, Bhatt G, Shi Y. Virtual experiments guide calibration strategies for a real-world watershed application of coupled surface-subsurface modeling. Journal of Hydrologic Engineering 2016;21(11):04016043. |
R835142 (2016) |
Exit |
Supplemental Keywords:
Watersheds, groundwater, land, global climate, precipitation, effects, effluent, discharge, public policy, community-based, cost-benefit, non-market valuation, preferences, public good, socio-economic, environmental assets, hydrology, engineering, social science, monitoring, measurement methods, Mid-AtlanticProgress and Final Reports:
Original Abstract Subprojects under this Center: (EPA does not fund or establish subprojects; EPA awards and manages the overall grant for this center).
R835142C001 Decision Making – Cognitive and Institutional Barriers
R835142C002 Green Infrastructure Design and Visualization
R835142C003 Hydrologic and Water Quality Modeling for Green Infrastructure
R835142C004 Non-Hydrological Benefits and Citizen Preference
R835142C005 Public Engagement and Outreach
The 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
- Final Report
- 2016 Progress Report
- 2014 Progress Report
- 2013 Progress Report
- 2012 Progress Report
- Original Abstract
3 journal articles for this center