You are here:
Evaluating the effectiveness of best management practices and green infrastructure in the State of California
Citation:
Figary, S. AND N. Detenbeck. Evaluating the effectiveness of best management practices and green infrastructure in the State of California. American Water Resources Association (AWRA) Summer Specialty Conference: GIS and Water Resources IX, Sacramento, CA, July 11 - 13, 2016.
Impact/Purpose:
This poster will provide an overview of one of the case studies EPA ORD is conducting to evaluate the effectiveness of green infrastructure stormwater BMPs in protecting stream biological condition at the watershed scale. This project will demonstrate the utility of using electronic records of construction general permits to track the implementation of stormwater BMPs and their effects.
Description:
Since 2010, the State of California has required construction operators to utilize the electronic Storm Water Application and Report Tracking System (SMARTS) for construction projects covered by the General Construction Permit. The General Construction permit encourages BMP and GI use for stormwater management and is required of all new and redevelopment construction projects with more than one acre of land disturbance. SMARTS thereby creates a public database of construction sites throughout the state which provides a wealth of information for stormwater research, including location and the post-construction stormwater management plans with details of selected BMPs and GI. Additionally, California has several monitoring networks that enable the user to access existing ecological data throughout the state. For this project, ecological data were compiled from the California Environmental Data Exchange Network from 2013 - 2014, the USEPA Environmental Monitoring and Assessment Program from 2003 - 2004 and 2008 - 2009, Southern California Coastal Water Research Project from 1996 - 2012, and Southern California Stormwater Monitoring Coalition from 2013 - 2014. The ecological data collected included water quality, habitat condition, and biological communities including macroinvertebrates, fish, and periphyton. We will use the information obtained from SMARTS, as well as the ecological data from the monitoring networks, to select watersheds for analysis. The overall goal of our project is to develop predictive models for evaluating the impacts of urbanization on stream communities and the effectiveness of Best Management Practices (BMPs) and Green Infrastructure (GI).This poster focuses on the watershed selection process, including using geospatial analysis, verification of the construction projects through imagery, and data collection through monitoring networks. This project is in the early stages to the overall goal of utilizing existing data to quantify ecological responses managing stormwater through BMP and GI implementation and to develop predictive models. This effort is part of the United State Environmental Protection Agency’s National Green Infrastructure Research program. The results of our project will be used to examine the potential impacts of development on ecological communities, as well as model future scenarios of land use to evaluate and prioritize alternative mitigation strategies for minimizing impact on receiving waters.