CMNS 137

The intense concentration of human activity in urban areas leads to changes in both the quantity and quality of runoff that eventually reaches our streams, lakes, wetlands, estuaries and coasts. The increasing use of impervious surfaces designed to provide smooth and direct pathways for stormwater run-off, has led to greater runoff volumes and flow velocities in urban waterways. Unmanaged, these changes in the quantity and quality of stormwater can result in considerable damage to the environment.Improved environmental performance is needed to ensure that the environmental values and beneficial uses of receiving waters are sustained or enhanced.Urban Stormwater - Best-Practice Environmental Management Guidelines resulted from a collaboration between State government agencies, local government and leading research institutions. The guidelines have been designed to meet the needs of people involved in the planning, design or management of urban land uses or stormwater drainage systems. They provide guidance in ten key areas: Environmental performance objectives; Stormwater management planning; Land use planning; Water sensitive urban design; Construction site management; Business surveys; Education and awareness; Enforcement; Structural treatment measures; and Flow management.Engineers and planners within local government, along with consultants to the development industry, should find the guidelines especially useful. Government agencies should also find them helpful in assessing the performance of stormwater managers.While developed specifically for application in Victoria, Australia, the information will be of value to stormwater managers everywhere.

The pollution of water supplies, which can be caused by activities such as mining, agriculture, and improper waste disposal, can have negative health impacts on plant and animal life. the types and causes of water pollution, and the policies designed to protect the world's water supplies are all examined in this title.

Streets make up more than 80 percent of all public space in cities, yet street space is often underutilized or disproportionately allocated to the movement of private motor vehicles. Excess impervious surface contributes to stormwater runoff, posing a threat to the environment and human health, and often overwhelming sewer systems. This excess asphalt also poses a threat to public safety, encouraging faster speeds and dangerous conditions for people walking and biking.  The Urban Street Stormwater Guide begins from the principle that street design can support--or degrade--the urban area's overall environmental health. By incorporating Green Stormwater Infrastructure (GSI) into the right-of-way, cities can manage stormwater and reap the public health, environmental, and aesthetic benefits of street trees, planters, and greenery in the public realm. With thoughtful design, GSI can bolster strategies to provide a safe and pleasant walking and biking experience, efficient and reliable transit service, and safer streets for all users. Building on the successful NACTO urban street guides, the Urban Street Stormwater Guide provides the best practices for the design of GSI along transportation corridors. The authors consider context-sensitive design elements related to street design, character and use, zoning, posted speed, traffic volumes, and impacts to non-motorized and vehicular access. The Guide documents and synthesizes current practices being developed by individual agencies and recommends design guidance for implementation, as well as explores innovative new strategies being tested in cities nationwide. The guidance will focus on providing safe, functioning and maintainable infrastructure that meets the unique needs and requirements of the transportation corridors and its various uses and users. The state-of-the-art solutions in this guide will assist urban planners and designers, transportation engineers, city officials, ecologists, public works officials, and others interested in the role of the built urban landscape in protecting the climate, water quality, and natural environment.

Human beings and industrial-based society are changing the composition of our planet's atmosphere and causing it to warm at an unnatural and oftentimes astonishing rate. Much of that warmth is being absorbed by water which is causing an acceleration in the rate and manner in which water moves through the global hydrological cycle. A warmer atmosphere carries more water vapor which means as temperatures continue to rise storms will be more intense, last longer and cause more damage to our towns, cities and vital infrastructure. On the other side of the hydro-climate coin, we can also expect deeper, more persistent and damaging droughts throughout the world resulting in dramatic losses, difficult economic outcomes and fundamental alterations to landscape. This highly considered, accessible and readable book explains how changes in the water cycle have already begun to affect how we think about and value water security and climate stability and what we can do to ensure a sustainable future for our children and grandchildren.

Chronic and episodic water shortages are becoming common in many regions of the United States, and population growth in water-scarce regions further compounds the challenges. Increasingly, alternative water sources such as graywater-untreated wastewater that does not include water from the toilet but generally includes water from bathroom sinks, showers, bathtubs, clothes washers, and laundry sinks- and stormwater-water from rainfall or snow that can be measured downstream in a pipe, culvert, or stream shortly after the precipitation event-are being viewed as resources to supplement scarce water supplies rather than as waste to be discharged as rapidly as possible. Graywater and stormwater can serve a range of non-potable uses, including irrigation, toilet flushing, washing, and cooling, although treatment may be needed. Stormwater may also be used to recharge groundwater, which may ultimately be tapped for potable use. In addition to providing additional sources of local water supply, harvesting stormwater has many potential benefits, including energy savings, pollution prevention, and reducing the impacts of urban development on urban streams. Similarly, the reuse of graywater can enhance water supply reliability and extend the capacity of existing wastewater systems in growing cities. Despite the benefits of using local alternative water sources to address water demands, many questions remain that have limited the broader application of graywater and stormwater capture and use. In particular, limited information is available on the costs, benefits, and risks of these projects, and beyond the simplest applications many state and local public health agencies have not developed regulatory frameworks for full use of these local water resources. To address these issues, Using Graywater and Stormwater to Enhance Local Water Supplies analyzes the risks, costs, and benefits on various uses of graywater and stormwater. This report examines technical, economic, regulatory, and social issues associated with graywater and stormwater capture for a range of uses, including non-potable urban uses, irrigation, and groundwater recharge. Using Graywater and Stormwater to Enhance Local Water Supplies considers the quality and suitability of water for reuse, treatment and storage technologies, and human health and environmental risks of water reuse. The findings and recommendations of this report will be valuable for water managers, citizens of states under a current drought, and local and state health and environmental agencies.

Wetland Systems to Control Urban Runoff integrates natural and constructed wetlands, and sustainable drainage techniques into traditional water and wastewater systems used to treat surface runoff and associated diffuse pollution. The first part of the text introduces the fundamentals of water quality management, and water and wastewater treatment. The remaining focus of the text is on reviewing treatment technologies, disinfection issues, sludge treatment and disposal options, and current case studies related to constructed wetlands applied for runoff and diffuse pollution treatment. Professionals and students will be interested in the detailed design, operation, management, process control and water quality monitoring and applied modeling issues.

Cities across the US are using green infrastructure to meet water quality goals and provide more livable communities. In 2011, the city of Lancaster, Pennsylvania released a comprehensive Green Infrastructure Plan (GI Plan) articulating a set of goals, opportunities, and recommendations for implementing green infrastructure in Lancaster. While the water quality benefits associated with the Plan were estimated, many of the additional environmental, social, and economic benefits cited in the Plan were not. The purpose of this book is to demonstrate how accounting for the multiple benefits of green infrastructure can provide a more complete assessment of infrastructure and community investments. This book was prepared to help utilities, state and municipal agencies, and other stormwater professionals understand the potential benefits of their low impact development (LID) and green infrastructure (GI) programs. The objectives of this book are to highlight different evaluation methods that have been successfully applied, and also to demonstrate cases where LID/GI has been shown to be economically beneficial.

In an era of dwindling resources, water is poised to become the new oil. The entire world now faces the reality of a decreasing supply of clean water. To avert a devastating shortage, we must not only look at alternate water sources for existing structures but must plan our new developments differently. Design for Water is an accessible and clearly written guide to alternate water collection, with a focus on rainwater harvesting in the urban environment. The book: * Outlines the process of water collection from multiple sources--landscape, residential, commercial, industrial, school, park, and municipal systems * Provides numerous case studies * Details the assembly and actual application of equipment * Includes specific details, schematics, and references All aspects of rainwater harvesting are outlined, including passive and active system setup, storage, storm water reuse, distribution, purification, analysis, and filtration. There is even a section on rainwater harvesting for wildlife. In addition to rainwater, there are several affordable and accessible alternate sources, including cooling tower bleed-off water, air conditioning condensate, gray water, and fog collection. Design for Water is geared to providing those making development decisions and guidelines with the information they need to set up passive harvesting techniques. The book will especially appeal to engineers, landscape architects, municipal decision-makers, developers, and landowners. Heather Kinkade-Levario is a land-use planner in Arizona and the author of the award-winning Forgotten Rain. She is president of Forgotten Rain L.L.C., a rainwater harvesting and stormwater reuse company.

A study of urban stormwater runoff that explores the relationships among nature, technology, and society in cities. When rain falls on the city, it creates urban runoff that cause flooding, erosion, and water pollution. Municipal engineers manage a complex network of technical and natural systems to treat and remove these temporary water flows from cities as quickly as possible. Urban runoff is frequently discussed in terms of technical expertise and environmental management, but it encompasses a multitude of such nontechnical issues as land use, quality of life, governance, aesthetics, and community identity, and is central to the larger debates on creating more sustainable and livable cities. In this book, Andrew Karvonen uses urban runoff as a lens to view the relationships among nature, technology, and society. Offering theoretical insights from urban environmental history, human geography, landscape and ecological planning, and science and technology studies as well as empirical evidence from case studies, Karvonen proposes a new relational politics of urban nature. After describing the evolution of urban runoff practices, Karvonen analyzes the urban runoff activities in Austin and Seattle--two cities known for their highly contested public debates over runoff issues and exemplary storm water management practices. The Austin case study highlights the tensions among urban development, property rights, land use planning, and citizen activism; the Seattle case study explores the city's long-standing reputation for being in harmony with nature. Drawing on these accounts, Karvonen suggests a new relational politics of urban nature that is situated, inclusive, and action-oriented to address the tensions among nature, technology, and society.