Impact/Purpose:

Urbanization changes the rainfall-runoff relationship in a watershed due to increased impervious cover and leads to higher storm water runoff volumes that are flushed more quickly to the downstream receiving water body. Increased flooding degrades downstream ecosystems, increases erosion in the channel, and increases the number of inundated properties during small floods. Components of urban development, including land use, transportation infrastructure and Best Management Practices (BMPs) (e.g., detention ponds, wetlands, and porous pavement), may be designed more effectively to lead to hydrologic sustainability, where the downstream receiving body is not as adversely affected by storm water runoff. Current design metrics, such as peak flow criteria, may be used to design hydraulic system components, such as detention ponds, resulting in peak flows that do not exceed pre-development levels. These flows, however, have a longer residence in the downstream channel and fundamentally alter the downstream environment. Metrics based on peak flows do not fully capture the impact of urbanization and fail to give policy-makers, developers and landowners a measure of their impact on the downstream water body or a sense of ownership of these impacts.

The objective of this research is to better quantify and increase awareness of storm water runoff impacts through the development and demonstration of new hydrologic sustainability metrics and to increase the hydrologic sustainability of the Texas A&M University campus.

Description:

For small to mid-sized rain events, LID scenarios, including permeable pavements, rainwater harvesting, green roofs, and riparian buffer strips perform similarly to a conventional Best Management Practice, a detention pond, with respect to peak flows and HFR. For large rain events, the detention pond shows a lower peak flow and HFR than the LID strategies. Though the detention pond has a peak flow similar to the predevelopment conditions for large storms, the HFR is significantly higher. This is due to the sustained higher flows of the detention pond, and demonstrates the use of HFR as a more stringent metric than the peak flow alone.

URLs/Downloads:

Final Progress Report

Record Details:

Record Type:PROJECT( ABSTRACT )

Start Date:08/15/2008

Completion Date:08/14/2009

Record ID: 200638

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Related Organizations:

Role :OWNER

Organization Name :TEXAS A & M UNIVERSITY

Citation :College Station

State :TX

Zip Code :77843

Project Information:

Approach :

We propose a metric, Hydrologic Footprint Residence (HFR) that captures the change in the downstream floodplain and the duration of the flood’s residence. Because Texas A&M University is one of the nation’s largest university campuses by acreage, the campus has the potential for severely impacting downstream health. The hydrological sustainability of the campus will be evaluated through traditional flow-based metrics, statistical metrics, and HFR. BMP designs for improving the hydrologic sustainability of campus will be investigated and evaluated based on these metrics.

Cost :$10,000.00

Research Component :Pollution Prevention/Sustainable Development

Approach :

We propose a metric, Hydrologic Footprint Residence (HFR) that captures the change in the downstream floodplain and the duration of the flood’s residence. Because Texas A&M University is one of the nation’s largest university campuses by acreage, the campus has the potential for severely impacting downstream health. The hydrological sustainability of the campus will be evaluated through traditional flow-based metrics, statistical metrics, and HFR. BMP designs for improving the hydrologic sustainability of campus will be investigated and evaluated based on these metrics.

Cost :$10,000.00

Research Component :P3 Challenge Area - Water

Approach :

We propose a metric, Hydrologic Footprint Residence (HFR) that captures the change in the downstream floodplain and the duration of the flood’s residence. Because Texas A&M University is one of the nation’s largest university campuses by acreage, the campus has the potential for severely impacting downstream health. The hydrological sustainability of the campus will be evaluated through traditional flow-based metrics, statistical metrics, and HFR. BMP designs for improving the hydrologic sustainability of campus will be investigated and evaluated based on these metrics.

Cost :$10,000.00

Research Component :P3 Challenge Area - Built Environment

Project IDs:

ID Code :SU833944

Project type :EPA Grant