Grantee Research Project Results
Final Report: Zero Infrastructure Stormwater Management
EPA Grant Number: SU832504Title: Zero Infrastructure Stormwater Management
Investigators: Kibert, Charles Joseph
Institution: University of Florida
EPA Project Officer: Page, Angela
Phase: I
Project Period: September 1, 2005 through April 30, 2006
Project Amount: $9,894
RFA: P3 Awards: A National Student Design Competition for Sustainability Focusing on People, Prosperity and the Planet (2005) RFA Text | Recipients Lists
Research Category: P3 Challenge Area - Sustainable and Healthy Communities , Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development , P3 Awards , Sustainable and Healthy Communities
Objective:
Man's historical inability to manage water resources has effectively led to shortages and the degradation of this precious resource, upon which all aspects of life and society rely. Traditional stormwater management in Florida represents a major obstacle to achieving the goals of sustainability. Current stormwater management practices contribute to surface water pollution, erosion, flooding, and habitat destruction. The challenge of this research is to create and test alternative design approaches that eliminate the need for traditional stormwater infrastructure. The research team will compare the costs and benefits of traditional stormwater management to alternative designs for on-site, community scale affordable housing developments. Through collaboration with partners, such as the Neighborhood Housing and Development Corporation and the Shimberg Center for Affordable Housing, graduate students will conduct the proposed research. The research will be an integral part of the curriculum of the Fall 2005 Principles of Sustainable Development and Construction and the Spring 2006 Construction Ecology and Metabolism course at the University of Florida. The course instructor, also the director of the Powell Center for Construction and the Environment, will guide several research teams in developing and testing alternative design strategies. Students in this course come from diverse fields of study, such as Building Construction, Architecture, Ecology, Environmental Science, and Engineering. The focus of the research will be the creation of alternative design strategies that address the need for effective stormwater control while achieving a more sustainable community. Criteria for meeting this goal will include cost effectiveness, hydrologic integrity, integration of community with nature, and aesthetics. Implementation strategies will then be developed through collaboration with the partnership organizations. The research hopes to verify the potential of on-site, community-scale stormwater management as a cost-effective alternative to traditional stormwater management practices in Florida.
Summary/Accomplishments (Outputs/Outcomes):
For the purposes of the research the University Orthopaedic Center, on the University of Florida campus, was selected as the site with the most desirable characteristics for study. Some of the characteristics considered for site selection included: The site must be somewhere on the University of Florida, it must have at least one large building, it must have at least one parking lot, and it must have a considerable amount of impervious surface on it. Sitting on approximately 5.3 acres of land, the significant impervious surfaces on the site are the main building (roof area = 0.64 acre), the front parking lot (0.46 acre), and the side concrete lot (0.28 acre), representing a total impervious area of approximately 1.5 acres. The runoff from this developed area is routed north through a 24” storm sewer pipe to a detention pond on an adjacent property that is owned by the university. The system boundary was taken as the property line of the Orthopaedic Center for analysis purposes and to meet the objectives of the study. The Total Inflow Volume of Stormwater Runoff was calculated to be 0.838 acre-feet (ac-ft) at a Peak Inflow Rate of 1.08 cubic feet per second (cfs). A sustainable stormwater design using:
- An underground detention and runoff reuse pond
- Green-roofs
- Porous concrete
- A cistern for rainwater harvesting
- Gentle grass swales and
- A constructed wetland is proposed to contain all of this within the system boundary.
Conclusions:
The essence of “alternative or green Stormwater system design is to dissipate the runoff on the site. Using green technologies, the runoff is largely evaporated, evapotranspirated, infiltrated, or reused in an attempt to maintain, as closely as possible, the natural hydrologic period of the site, with the added benefits of reuse for human purposes such as irrigation, and use in buildings for lavatories or even potable consumption. Aside from the purely ecological benefits of hydrologic cycle maintenance (albeit on a small scale), the paradigm of alternative stormwater management systems offers additional benefits through multiple outcomes. On a large scale, green stormwater technologies may mitigate regional floodplain issues, provide parks for recreation, and even provide treatment to polluted quantities of runoff.
Taking this into consideration, the concept of “zero-infrastructure” in a strict sense may not be realistic for dense or even moderate density urban development. The USEPA project requirements are laid out with consideration to affordable housing developments, which are generally less dense than the Orthopaedic Center site in considered in this project. Simply, less-dense developments have proportionally more space for the employment of green stormwater technologies, which are generally space intensive. Arriving at “zero-infrastructure” is also a function of how “infrastructure” is defined. One intent of the USEPA project is to save money by reducing or eliminating the need for traditional civil infrastructure, which can be a significant cost in urban development. Unfortunately, the employment of green stormwater management technologies in an urban or a dense-urban environment does not seem like a viable solution when elimination of cost through the elimination of infrastructure is a desired outcome. For example, the employment of an eco-roof system has the requirement of added structural capacity for roof loads; the employment of a cistern system for rainwater reuse might be considered infrastructure; and groundwater recharge applications maintain at least the infrastructure requirements of a traditional system. With this in mind, it seems that the primary outcomes of green stormwater technologies are the ecological outcomes themselves. Additionally, it would not be prudent engineering practice to design a system without some measure of redundancy. Simply, this means that some traditional civil infrastructure will likely be required to meet civil design codes, and to mitigate the effects of a significant rainfall event without compromising the systems’ integrity.
Supplemental Keywords:
Groundwater, Watersheds, Absorption, Discharge, Affordable Community, Hydrology, Ecosystem, Aquifer, Sustainability, Life Cycle Cost Analysis, Conservation, Urban And Regional Planning, Environmental Education, RFA, Scientific Discipline, Sustainable Industry/Business, Sustainable Environment, Technology for Sustainable Environment, Civil/Environmental Engineering, Ecology and Ecosystems, green design, sustainable development, urban planning, environmental sustainability, conservation, engineering, pollution prevention, environmentally conscious designRelevant Websites:
Powell Center - University of Florida Exit
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.