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FRAMEWORK DESIGN FOR BMP PLACEMENT IN URBAN WATERSHEDS 2005
Citation:
LAI, DENNIS AND L. SHOEMAKER. FRAMEWORK DESIGN FOR BMP PLACEMENT IN URBAN WATERSHEDS 2005. Presented at World Water and Environmental Resources Congress, Anchorage, AL, May 15 - 19, 2005.
Impact/Purpose:
To inform the public
Description:
To assist stormwater management professionals in planning for best management practices (BMPs) implementation, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) began a research project in 2003 to develop a decision support system for selection and placement of BMP/LID at strategic locations in urban watersheds. The BMP assessment tools based on sound science and engineering will help develop, evaluate, select, and place BMP options based on cost and effectiveness. The system is called the Integrated Stormwater Management Decision Support Framework (ISMDSF). The ISMDSF will provide a means for objective analysis of management alternatives among multiple interacting and competing factors. The desired outcome from the system application is a thorough, practical, and informative assessment considering the significant factors in urban watersheds. The ISMDSF will be applied to several diverse urban watersheds to evaluate and demonstrate its capability. The initial phase of this research is expected to be completed in 2005 and will include a comprehensive design with all pieces in place but not all functionalities. The subsequent phase will include an enhanced geographical information system (GIS) capability for visualization of placement options, more powerful post-processors, expanded cost estimating functions, improved BMP simulation processes, and more importantly, a cost-optimization component. The design of the ISMDSF is currently in the final stage. It is comprised of seven key components: framework manager, ArcGIS interface, watershed module, BMP module, optimization module, post-processor, and Microsoft Access database. They are integrated under a common ArcGIS platform and each provides a unique contribution to the overall system. In addition to an overview of this research effort, this paper will focus on the current known details of the framework design.