Just like precipitation itself, the nature of the stormwater management sector is decentralized. Runoff-control infrastructure must cover entire watersheds to maximize its effectiveness, often crossing jurisdictional boundaries. This creates questions regarding who assumes responsibility for stormwater infrastructure construction and upkeep. Further, the ever-growing collection of designs and approaches for stormwater management complicates efforts to develop best practices for operations and maintenance, often forcing communities to make important stormwater management decisions based on incomplete information. For these reasons and more, devising a nationwide strategy to guide and expedite the growth of the U.S. stormwater sector has proven challenging.

In 2015, the release of the inaugural Rainfall to Results report marked the launch of the WEF Stormwater Institute. Like the 2015 report, the 2023 update was authored and reviewed by an interdisciplinary group of sector-leading stormwater professionals and will guide WEF’s ongoing efforts to identify common challenges, enhance information-sharing, and develop new resources to assist U.S. stormwater organizations of all sizes and contexts.

Seven ‘Vision Areas’ for Sustainable Stormwater Management

Rainfall to Results re-visits six vision areas of the stormwater profession that represent the sector’s most pressing challenges or highest-potential opportunities for improvement and adds a seventh area to consider climate change. These vision areas cover the gamut of developments in the stormwater sector from the spread of digital twins, artificial intelligence, and other cutting-edge technologies to promoting interjurisdictional and interdisciplinary cooperation on stormwater management, establishing a set of sector-wide, universally relevant priorities to guide future action.

The visions areas are

• Work at the Watershed Scale,
• Transform Stormwater Governance,
• Support Innovation and Best Practices,
• Manage and Maintain Stormwater Assets,
• Continue to Close the Funding Gap,
• Engage the Community, and
• Plan for Stormwater Resilience.

The report explores each of these vision areas in detail. Each section begins with a forward-looking vision statement that describes ideal future conditions for that aspect of the U.S. stormwater sector. This is followed by a set of three to six specific action items targeted toward researchers, practitioners, regulators, and legislators that will help move the needle toward these ideal futures. Action items are reinforced with case studies from around the U.S. and beyond, highlighting exemplary work underway by stormwater organizations of all sizes and scopes.

New Challenges, New Opportunities

New to the 2023 Rainfall to Results report is a seventh vision area addressing the need for stormwater organizations to better incorporate climate change resilience into their practices.

Report authors describe that stormwater managers must develop proactive, future-facing resilience plans that incorporate the latest authoritative climate change projections. These plans should assess how changing precipitation trends are expected to affect existing stormwater infrastructure as well as incorporate emerging monitoring technology — such as advanced sensors, warning networks, and hydraulic modeling programs — to accurately gauge these effects.

According to the report, many different stakeholders can play a role in this work. State and federal governments as well as equipment manufacturers can help make these technologies more accessible, and the research community can support efforts to standardize and consolidate climate change projections into more actionable data for stormwater managers, the report details.

The 2023 report outlines new opportunities to improve the U.S. stormwater sector and identifies emerging challenges. Report authors draw a parallel between the rise of green infrastructure 8 years ago and the dawn of “smart” stormwater infrastructure today.  In 2015, green infrastructure was considered an unexplored frontier for the U.S. stormwater sector. That same momentum is now building behind high-tech measures with automated controls and sensing capabilities, able to optimize infrastructure operations and improve long-term resilience.

Likewise, the report describes a shift to valuing runoff as an underutilized resource, ripe for reuse opportunities with proper treatment capabilities. This is in contrast to its past reputation as something that required diversion and disposal. The largest-ever federal investment in U.S. stormwater programs is expected to create new flexibility to help stormwater professionals seize these new trends, authors describe.

Read the full 2023 Rainfall to Results: The Future of Stormwater report via WEF’s Access Water platform.

Top image courtesy of PublicDomainPictures/Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post Updated Rainfall to Results Report Plots Course for Future of U.S. Stormwater Sector appeared first on Stormwater Report.

In simple terms, the drizzle problem refers to the tendency of large-scale climate models to overlook smaller-scale atmospheric factors that cause routine storms to deliver less or more precipitation than average. These models more often underestimate precipitation intensity. For instance, they might anticipate light drizzles instead of actual torrential downpours. This reduces their usefulness, especially as extreme precipitation occurs ever more frequently with climate change.

The solution to the drizzle problem, contends new research from Columbia University (New York) climatologists, relies on accounting for how clouds move and interact with one another to affect rainfall. However, this is difficult for two reasons. For one, the interplay between cloud organization and precipitation during a storm occurs on scales too small for most climate models to capture. For another, it requires something that has not existed until now: a quantitative measure that can accurately represent cloud organization.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences describes how a combination of machine learning and artificial intelligence can help solve the drizzle problem by addressing both issues.

“Our findings are especially exciting because, for many years, the scientific community has debated whether to include cloud organization in climate models,” Pierre Gentine, study co-author and Director of Columbia University’s LEAP Center, said in a statement. “Our work provides an answer to the debate and a novel solution for including organization, showing that including this information can significantly improve our prediction of precipitation intensity and variability.”

Dissecting the ‘Drizzle Problem’

Cloud organization is an important variable to consider when attempting to understand how the same storm might deliver more precipitation to one area than another. When clouds cluster together, the surrounding atmosphere becomes more humid, which generally correlates with higher rainfall volumes within a narrow water column. These movements are poorly captured by global climate models, which typically have a resolution no finer than 100 km (62 mi).

To compensate for clouds and other phenomena that occur at smaller scales, climate models rely on a technique called stochastic parameterization — using historical data as well as other observable factors to infer such conditions as cloud organization based on probability. However, since light drizzles tend to occur far more often than heavy deluges in most of the world, parameterization by climate models often assumes deviations from normal rainfall will be sprinkles rather than inundations.

The proper metric to quantify cloud organization could eliminate the need for parameterization and make predictions by climate models more actionable at local scales. During the past few decades, at least 20 such metrics have been proposed in scientific literature, according to the study. However, these existing metrics were designed to either measure cloud movement and organization over areas too expansive to be actionable for predicting rainfall or sought to represent only specific aspects of cloud behavior that are irrelevant to precipitation.

Mimicking the Human Brain

Existing metrics for cloud organization were developed according to certain assumptions or foundations. For example, they might describe cloud clustering as a function of other climatological variables, or adapt existing formulas and measures originally intended to characterize other phenomena. In fundamental contrast to existing metrics, the Columbia study describes tasking an advanced artificial intelligence with developing an optimal way to measure cloud behavior based solely on the patterns it observes elsewhere in the climate model.

Researchers began this process by training a neural network algorithm — an artificial intelligence designed to recognize patterns in a manner that mimics the human brain — on data from a high-resolution series of simulated storm clouds provided by a publicly available climate model. The neural network delved into the patterns between when clouds began to form and when the accompanying storm dissipated. By studying the network’s observations of these patterns, researchers managed to interpret and isolate the numbers the algorithm assigned to cloud organization.

When the researchers modified global climate models to use the new metric, the models managed to predict extreme rainfall events with roughly double their usual accuracy, study results illustrate. This new metric not only offers the potential to improve how large-scale climate models predict precipitation, but also several other small-scale factors currently missed by these models, according to the researchers.

“We discovered that our organization metric explains precipitation variability almost entirely and could replace a stochastic parameterization in climate models,” said Sarah Shamekh, Columbia Ph.D. student and lead study author, in a statement. “Including this information significantly improved precipitation prediction at the scale relevant to climate models, accurately predicting precipitation extremes and spatial variability.”

Read the full study, “Implicit Learning of Convective Organization Explains Precipitation Stochasticity,” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Top image courtesy of U.S. Department of Energy

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post New Metric Solves ‘Drizzle Problem’ in Global Climate Models appeared first on Stormwater Report.

The Ballona Creek Trash Interceptor 007 is the first device of its kind in the U.S. It was developed and deployed by Dutch nonprofit The Ocean Cleanup (Delft). The Ocean Cleanup chooses strategic sites around the world to deploy their fully automated devices at no cost to the municipalities that host them. The devices clear debris from stormwater runoff and other sources before they reach the ocean. Similar devices are already operating in a growing number of marine-debris hotspots around the world, including sites in Indonesia, Guatemala, Vietnam, and Malaysia.

The Ballona Creek Trash Interceptor’s first storm season was marked by unprecedented runoff volumes generated by at least 12 atmospheric river storms as well as the strongest tornado to affect Los Angeles in 30 years.

“Its performance has exceeded our wildest expectations,” Boyan Slat told the Los Angeles Times in May. Slat is founder and chief executive of The Ocean Cleanup.

Simple, Sustainable Source Control

The Ballona Creek Trash Interceptor 007 floats just offshore from Ballona Creek’s discharge point, appearing as a wide, blue-and-white barge. It is moored to the north and south jetties of the channel and equipped with a purpose-built river monitoring system that sets the device in motion when stream conditions and weather forecasts suggest higher-than-usual flows. When it senses oncoming discharges, the solar-powered interceptor autonomously deploys two long, floating barriers in a V-shaped formation toward the shore.

Debris entering the Santa Monica Bay from Ballona Creek becomes trapped between the barriers, which gradually feed the trash into the opening of the device. A conveyor belt then guides the waste into six large, onboard dumpsters for periodic collection and proper disposal by DPW crews.  

As part of its arrangement with The Ocean Cleanup, DPW pays to perform basic maintenance and ensure timely disposal of collected debris. However, DPW describes on its website that these additional staffing concerns do not entail higher burdens on taxpayers, as Los Angeles County’s existing stormwater fee as well as support from environmental nonprofit groups fully fund the device’s upkeep. The Ocean Cleanup paid to deliver, install, and initiate the device in October 2022, beginning a 2-year pilot program to gauge its performance. During this trial period — after which DWP will have the option to assume ownership of the device at no cost — The Ocean Cleanup maintains ownership of the interceptor.

Although the device exceeded expectations during its first storm season in Los Angeles, the inaugural stretch was not without its challenges. At least twice — once in January and again in May — heavy winds and strong waves during intense storm events damaged the device’s deployable barriers, prompting project partners to secure replacements. However, by repositioning itself, the device remained semi-functional even during these outages.

Placement is Paramount

Located in southwestern Los Angeles, the 14-km (8.5-mi) Ballona Creek is among the most urbanized U.S. streams.

The channel sits within a 335-km² (130-mi²) watershed encompassing much of Los Angeles as well as Beverly Hills, Santa Monica, Culver City, and unincorporated Los Angeles County. The channel receives flows from an area with a combined population of approximately 1.5 million residents. A single storm-drain network serves the entire watershed, which collects runoff and debris from busy roadways and discharges it into Ballona Creek. According to DPW estimates, in an average year, heavy storms that overwhelm the drainage network send nearly 13,500 kg (30,000 lb) of plastic waste alone into Santa Monica Bay.

The Ocean Cleanup describes on its website that Ballona Creek represented an ideal site for a trash interceptor not only due to its debris output, but also its proximity to the North Pacific Subtropical Convergence Zone. This system of fast-moving ocean currents mixes nearshore waters with those hundreds of miles away from land, making trash and debris from Los Angeles and its surroundings particularly difficult to recapture after its discharge. Much of this waste from urbanized areas bordering the Pacific Ocean eventually concentrates in the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, a massive gyre of degraded but persistent microplastics covering approximately 1.6 million km² (620,000 mi²) of the ocean as of 2018.

Learn more about the Ballona Creek Trash Interceptor 007 project at the DPW website.

Top image courtesy of The Ocean Cleanup

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post ‘Interceptor’ Keeps More Than 75 Tons of Debris Out of Pacific Ocean appeared first on Stormwater Report.

This need is perhaps greatest for rivers running through cities, which are uniquely sensitive to “urban stream syndrome” — rapid deterioration in response to urbanization and economic development. As approximately 80% of the U.S. population and rising now lives in cities, buy-in from residents near urban streams is often a make-or-break factor in fundraising for restoration projects.

A recent study published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences proposes a new methodology to help quantify the financial value that locals attach to water quality improvements in urban streams. The study, supported by a U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) grant, aims to provide new tools to help governments and regulators of all sizes and scopes make better-informed decisions about the restoration projects they propose.

“Urban streams are ubiquitous and face a number of stressors from rapid economic development,” said study co-author Roger von Haefen, North Carolina State University (Raleigh) Professor of Agricultural Economics, in a release. “But there have not been well-established tools to help agencies assess the benefits of regulations aimed at improving the water quality of these streams.”

Translating Data Into Visible Outcomes

The research team focused on the Piedmont Region to prove and refine their new approach. This region stretches approximately 171,000 km² (66,000 mi²) between Maryland and Alabama. The Piedmont Region contains roughly 16,000 km (10,000 mi) of urban streams. Several Piedmont cities — most notably in North Carolina — are amid historic booms in population and rapid urbanization, causing new stressors on nearby streams.

One example is the Upper Neuse River Basin, which contains the cities of Raleigh and Durham. This region is projected to nearly double in population within the next few decades.

Considering the unique hydrological and socioeconomic conditions of the Upper Neuse River Basin and its residents, the researchers developed a three-part approach to gauge residents’ willingness to pay for different stream-restoration scenarios.

First, researchers compiled a robust set of water quality monitoring data from urban streams across the basin to capture a snapshot of their current quality. They input this data into a computer model that then calculated six water quality indicators for each stream: biodiversity, fecal coliform contents, specific conductance, total nitrogen, total phosphorus, and turbidity.

Recognizing that the average water customer will require more context to understand the meaning of these indicators, the second step saw the researchers consult with various environmental and public health experts familiar with the Piedmont Region to translate raw numbers into visible, easily understandable benefits. This translation effort followed strict procedural controls and quality control standards. It tied hypothetical improvements for each water quality indicator to observable outcomes. For example, a restoration project that would lower a stream’s fecal coliform, nitrogen, and phosphorus contents by specific thresholds could change the stream’s risks to human health from “medium” to “low”, while a project targeting turbidity could reduce the annual number of murky water days in the stream by a proportionate number.

Lastly, the researchers used these translations to conduct a voluntary, online survey of more than 2,500 households served by streams in the Upper Neuse River Basin. The survey proposed four hypothetical stream restoration projects, each promising observable changes in the condition of the stream ecosystem, risks to human health, and/or the annual number of murky days each stream would experience. Scenarios prescribed a range of different cleanup tactics or combinations thereof, such as increasing canopy cover along stream banks, introducing stormwater runoff source-control features, or repairing leak-prone collection systems. Each scenario entailed some degree of increase in monthly water bills via a new stormwater fee. Mimicking a referendum on whether to proceed with each hypothetical restoration project, respondents could choose to either approve or decline each scenario. 

Financial Insights at All Scales

Working from survey results, the researchers gained several insights into specific outcomes from stream restoration projects that locals prioritize and desire.

Most notably, the study describes, residents expressed far more interest in the health and safety of local streams (measured in biodiversity and risks to human health) than in their aesthetic value (the stream’s annual number of murky days). More than 85% of respondents ranked the water’s visual clarity as their least important concern, with stream health and human health roughly tied for their most important concern.

Answers for each scenario shed light on the types of projects residents would be most likely to support. For example, the most commonly approved proposal would increase tree cover along stream banks by 25% while also substantially decreasing runoff from nearby streets and parking lots. On average, each household was willing to pay $127 per year for such a project — approximately $54 million annually when aggregated according to the region’s rate-paying population.

Von Haefen described that although the hydrological and socioeconomic data underpinning this study were tailored narrowly to the Piedmont Region, a similar methodology could suit this type of analysis elsewhere. The authors expressed hope that their procedure will help guide decision-making at all levels, from small cities trying to implement cost-effective projects to federal regulators attempting to create more impactful water quality policies.

“We’ve shown that this approach can work, and it is designed for use in urban areas throughout the Piedmont Region,” von Haefen said. “Currently, EPA has limited tools to assess the benefits associated with environmental regulations that affect urban streams. We’re optimistic that federal and state agencies can use this framework to better capture those benefits and make more informed regulatory decisions.”

Read the full study, “Estimating the Benefits of Stream Water Quality Improvements in Urbanizing Watersheds: An Ecological Production Function Approach,” in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Top image courtesy of pakawoot/Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post Researchers Pinpoint Financial Value of Urban Stream Restoration appeared first on Stormwater Report.

Wetland connectivity — the degree to which water from wetlands flows into nearby rivers, lakes, and oceans — is gaining increasing attention among scientists as one of the most important factors that determine the type and level of ecosystem benefits wetlands provide. However, determining whether wetlands connect to other freshwater systems can be difficult. For example, water from wetlands may flow into other bodies from either above or deep below ground-level, for only certain parts of each year, or only in instances of heavy rainfall. 

To help watershed managers, conservationists, and regulators make better-informed decisions about wetlands, a research partnership led by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) has developed the first-ever classification system to help assess different levels of wetland connectivity. A study published in the journal Nature Water introduces the system and applies it across the contiguous U.S. This system identifies where different types of wetlands exist as well as how their varying levels of connectivity affect local water quality.

“We still have much to learn about how wetlands connect to downstream waters in different geographic regions,” said Mark Rains, University of South Florida (Tampa) Geologist and study co-author, in a release. “This classification system gives us a place to start.”

Classification Improves Strategic Wetland Management

Using existing geospatial data on U.S. wetland coverage and hydrology, researchers identified four major wetland classes. These are based on their surface connectivity to downstream waters and their resulting effects on downstream water quality: riparian; non-riparian shallow (NRS); non-riparian mid-depth (NRMD); and non-riparian deep (NRD).

Riparian wetlands, defined as those that directly adjoin rivers and streams with multiple, aboveground connections, were by far the most commonly identified class in the U.S. These types of wetlands cover about 3.8% of all land area in the lower 48 states and have large effects on downstream water quality. Although the researchers confirmed that riparian wetlands are the most effective for controlling sedimentation, the study describes that they also tend to increase acidification and brownification — negative changes in water color due to high amounts of dissolved organic matter and carbon. 

By contrast, NRS wetlands were the rarest wetland class. NRS wetlands are concentrated in Florida and along the Atlantic coast. Featuring slightly less connectivity than riparian wetlands, these landforms contain permeable but poorly draining soils. They most often connect to downstream waters through aboveground connections, but this connection is not constant. NRS wetlands have the capacity for below-ground flows, but they tend to be shallow and infrequent, the study describes.

Water drains through the soil of NRMD wetlands more easily than NRS wetlands, making below-ground flows far more common than surface flows. They are considered less connected to downstream waters than riparian or NRS wetlands, yet still better-connected than NRD wetlands, which feature exclusively sub-surface flows and only experience above-ground flows during the most torrential downpours. Each of the three non-riparian wetland classes covered roughly 0.5% of total land area in the contiguous U.S.

The study reveals specific insights into how each class of wetlands affects downstream waters, measured by their influence on 11 criteria of stream water quality. They also map the locations of each class of wetlands across the U.S. to help regulators and watershed managers plan wetland restoration and protection efforts. Researchers illustrate how restoring different types of wetlands can help achieve specific goals for downstream waters. For example, the study describes that restoring NRD wetlands can often provide similar rates of nitrate removal and total suspended solids filtration as can restoring the same volume of riparian wetlands, but with the added bonus of minimizing acidification and brownification rates.

The classification system proposed in the study is globally applicable, researchers describe. EPA plans to make the system, as well as details on how to apply it, publicly available online, according to EPA Research Ecologist and lead author Scott Leibowitz.

“Until now, there hasn’t been a way to classify how wetlands connect to other waters at large scales,” said Leibowitz. “This has limited our ability to understand how wetland connectivity might contribute to water quality in watersheds.”

Read the full study, “National Hydrologic Connectivity Classification Links Wetlands with Stream Water Quality,” in Nature Water.

Vital Ecosystems Under Threat

The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration estimates that approximately 2,600 km² (1,000 mi²) of wetlands were lost in the U.S. between 1996 and 2016, mainly due to human development.

The U.S. Clean Water Act affords protections against development to waterways considered ‘Waters of the U.S.’ (WOTUS) — however, the definition of WOTUS has been ambiguous and subject to various changes since the concept’s introduction in the 1980s. Under the Clean Water Act, protections for wetlands have historically depended upon their ability to impair the quality of other WOTUS, such as navigable rivers and lakes, if degraded or removed.

How EPA gauges this potential, however, has also been the subject of various legal challenges, and ultimately hinges on the definition of wetland connectivity. In general, wetlands have received WOTUS status so long as they are adjacent to other protected waters, even if separated by dikes, barriers, or berms.

On May 25, 2023, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled 5-4 that Clean Water Act protections for wetlands extended to only those systems “with a continuous surface connection to bodies that are waters of the United States in their own rights”. Under the newly developed wetland connectivity classification system, this ruling means that only riparian wetlands would qualify for WOTUS status — and even then, only if they connect to other protected waters.

Image courtesy of Jose Sabino/Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post New Classification System Focuses on Wetland Connectivity appeared first on Stormwater Report.

A recent study published in Nature Communications Earth and Environment analyzes how the topics discussed among Australian stream management professionals have shifted during the last 25 years. It probes these long-term changes using a unique dataset: nearly 1,000 peer-reviewed papers presented during the biennial Australian Stream Management Conference (ASMC) since 1996.

Lead author and University of Melbourne Research Fellow Kathryn Russell acknowledges that papers presented at conferences do not typically have the same scientific impact as research papers published in journals. However, she describes that because conference papers are often written by practitioners and public officials in addition to academics, studying these peer-to-peer exchanges can provide richer insights into the innerworkings of an industry than studying papers published in research journals. Understanding how environmental industries set priorities and promote specific practices among themselves can be useful. These behaviors directly affect the types of projects and policies these professionals pursue, the study describes.

“While our analysis is local, our recommendations are global,” Russell said in a release. These insights can help as environmentalists in Australia and beyond work to meet ecosystem restoration goals set by the United Nations.

Analyzing the Who, What, and How

Researchers focused their analysis on three distinct aspects of how Australia’s stream restoration industry has developed. They looked at who shares information, what topics they deem worthy of discussion, and how those topics are contextualized. The researchers developed a structured review process to assess these factors for 958 ASMC papers.

Since 1996, the authorship teams behind ASMC papers have grown markedly in both volume and diversity, the researchers found. The study notes that longer author lists for each paper suggest a growing emphasis on collaboration and circumventing jurisdictional boundaries. More authors also typically mean including people from different types of institutions and disciplines. Notably, the analysis found that participation by consultants has increased dramatically while contributions from academics have declined. This signals a shift in the stream management sector toward practice rather than theory. Recent decades have also seen an increase in the number of female authors, constituting 18% of all authors in 1996 and 37% in 2021.

Likewise, the content discussed in ASMC papers has become increasingly diverse. Researchers identified and tracked 60 distinct topics within the realm of stream restoration discussed in conference proceedings and measured the change in prevalence over time. Since 1996, the topics that have increased in popularity most consistently include large-scale waterway management programs and managing water associated with mining activities, with such topics as urban stormwater management, managing rivers on indigenous lands, and macroinvertebrate management also experiencing a steady uptick in prevalence. Particularly in more recent years, an increasing number of papers have discussed such topics as citizen science, environmental DNA, and remote sensing.  

Evidence suggests that much of the discourse conducted via ASMC proceedings responds directly to high-profile natural events that affect rivers and streams, such as droughts, floods, and bushfires. For example, Australia’s Millennium Drought from 1996 through 2009 generated a spike in discussion about policy options to counteract water scarcity and stream overallocation. In 2010, the topical distribution shifted quickly toward flood management when the La Niña system caused spates of severe flooding across Australia through 2012.

But perhaps most telling, the researchers describe, is what ASMC papers do not discuss. According to the study, most ASMC proceedings that detail specific projects and policies focus on successes, but very few report lessons learned from failures. For that reason, researchers claim that much of Australia’s environmental sector champions a reactive rather than proactive approach to stream management. Although adaptive management topics have been included within the ASMC program since 1996, several crucial subtopics to an effective adaptive management strategy, such as vision-setting and project prioritization, have not been substantially discussed.

Global Insights from Local Investigation

The United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) specify several worldwide targets for freshwater ecosystem restoration by 2030. The researchers argue in the study that conferences and industry events can encourage progress toward these targets by prioritizing certain topics in the papers they accept. The study outlines several broad recommendations specifically tailored to the SDGs to help drive sustainable stream restoration regardless of region.

First, program-makers should strive to approve papers that represent efforts from a variety of different professional backgrounds as well as diverse demographics. This not only includes a mixture of practitioners, policymakers, and academics among authors, the researchers describe, but also papers describing projects that involve and affect indigenous and socially disadvantaged populations.

Researchers also call for a greater emphasis on green infrastructure and nature-based solutions in knowledge-sharing efforts. Authors acknowledge that these topics are growing in prominence elsewhere, such as in Western Europe and North America, but that they still generally lag in Australia.

Conference programs should promote guidance on how stream management programs can become more adaptive. This includes spotlighting failed programs as well as successful ones. It also may include information about monitoring systems and how to incorporate insights into these systems to improve broader waterway management programs.

Read the full study, “Evolution of a River Management Industry in Australia Reveals Meandering Pathway to 2030 UN Goals,” in Nature Communications Earth and Environment.

Top image courtesy of Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post Conference Papers Offer Glimpse into Evolution of Stream Management Sector appeared first on Stormwater Report.

The National Municipal Stormwater and Green Infrastructure Awards program, developed and introduced in 2015 by the Water Environment Federation through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), was established to recognize high-performing regulated MS4s. Award winners meet and exceed regulatory requirements in innovative ways that are effective and cost-efficient.

Submissions will undergo an expert committee review and selection process. Each applicant will be designated a Bronze, Silver, or Gold community within the categories of both program management and innovation.

High-performers in program management and innovation will be recognized at WEFTEC 2023 in Chicago.

Questions? Contact Lisa Deason at LDeason@wef.org.

SUBMIT APPLICATIONS FOR WEF’s 2023 MS4 AWARDS BY JUNE 5

The post Applications Now Open for 2023 WEF MS4 Awards appeared first on Stormwater Report.

The event gave participants an opportunity to engage with U.S. decisionmakers about the latest legislative, regulatory, and political trends shaping the U.S. stormwater sector.

The forum also provided a platform for such agencies and organizations as the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), and American Rivers (Washington, D.C.) to deliver program updates.

“WEF and its partners were overjoyed to see stormwater professionals from across the U.S. convene in our nation’s capital to advocate for solutions to the sector’s long list of challenges, such as aging infrastructure, workforce shortages, and funding gaps,” said Bianca Pinto, WEF Stormwater Practice Lead. “Whether you attended in-person or online, we sincerely thank you for taking the time to join us in our work to push for a stronger, more adaptable, and more equitable stormwater management landscape.”

The in-person event, which also was live streamed, was organized by the Water Environment Federation (WEF; Alexandria, Virginia) and the National Municipal Stormwater Alliance (NMSA; Alexandria, Virginia) in cooperation with the National League of Cities (Washington, D.C.) and National Association of Counties (Washington, D.C.).

Insights From State and Federal Leaders

The event began with a welcome from forum organizers. Then, Evan Branosky, Chief Stormwater Policy Advisor for the Virginia Department of Environment Quality (VDEQ), delivered the keynote address. He described innovative ways that state governments can support stronger, community scale stormwater management programs.

Branosky discussed recent VDEQ efforts to consolidate years of VDEQ guidance and resources into a centralized Virginia Stormwater Handbook. This guide grants communities in the state easy access to up-to-date information on regulations, funding mechanisms, design specifications, and more. He also described a regional partnership between the state government and Virginia Tech (Blacksburg) that focuses on developing innovative approaches to stem the tide of nitrogen and phosphorus from agriculture into the Chesapeake Bay via runoff. His remarks also included plans to launch a new, statewide trading platform for water-related commodities in 2024.

Next, policy staff representing both the U.S. Senate and U.S. House of Representatives talked about NOAA efforts to substantially update its Atlas 14 program using funds from the 2021 Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. The upcoming Atlas 15 program will provide more accurate, up-to-date, and dynamic precipitation frequency data to assist in stormwater infrastructure planning across the U.S. — crucial information for designing climate-resilient flood-control systems.

Later in the day, EPA personnel briefed the audience about EPA’s recent actions to support stormwater infrastructure implementation as well as coordinate research, information sharing, and regulation. Among others, these actions include

• a new website that provides guidance on best practices for off-site stormwater management,
• the launch of a new public-outreach toolkit known as Stormwater Smart,
• a new EPA publication on disaster-resilient green infrastructure design, and
• an update on the Green Infrastructure Federal Collaborative — an initiative launched in 2021 to coordinate green infrastructure facilitation activities across the federal government.

EPA representatives also discussed ongoing research on such topics as stormwater reuse, source control, integrated planning, and emerging contaminants.

Recommendations From the Stormwater Sector

Before each annual National Stormwater Policy Forum, WEF and NMSA develop a list of recommendations that outlines ways the federal government can help U.S. communities and utilities better manage stormwater. This year’s Recommendations to Improve the Stormwater Program in the U.S. documentspecifies four key funding and policy priorities for the next fiscal year.

Although the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law authorized an unprecedented level of funding for various stormwater programs, many of these provisions have not received full appropriations stipulated under the legislation. WEF and NMSA urge U.S. Congress to fund fully these previously authorized programs during the fiscal year 2024 budgeting process. One example of these programs is establishing Centers of Excellence for Stormwater Control Infrastructure Technologies.

The recommendations document also calls for new federal infrastructure funding options, several of which could be easily established by modifying existing programs. As only 1.8% of Clean Water State Revolving Fund loans have been used for stormwater investments over the program’s 30-year duration, authors call for a new grant program for regional stormwater infrastructure that would eventually mature into a full-fledged Stormwater State Revolving Fund program.

Another recommendation is to create two new federal programs that target specific technical needs in the stormwater sector. In one program, federal agencies should allocate resources to help communities develop local- and regional-scale computer models that more accurately track real-time rainfall and flooding during storms, as well as provide more detail about forecasted precipitation. The second effort should target source control for stormwater pollutants of concern by establishing a permanent EPA program focusing on keeping per- and poly-fluoroalkyl substances (PFAS), microplastics, and tire-wear derivatives out of runoff.

A Sneak Peek at Results From 2022 MS4 Needs Survey

WEF also unveiled preliminary results from its 2022 National MS4 Needs Assessment Survey, which take stock of common challenges faced by regulated stormwater organizations throughout the U.S. This third installment in the biennial series was administered from late 2022 through early 2023.

Just under 650 organizations responded. They represent agencies of all sizes and geographic contexts. Three similarly ranked challenges emerged: aging infrastructure, funding needs, and staffing challenges.

Respondents also indicated they needed more information how to access existing funding and financing opportunities to support stormwater programs and infrastructure, as well as best practices for long-term, post-construction monitoring and maintaining of stormwater infrastructure performance.

Survey results also highlighted a need for proper protocols to help stormwater managers develop long-term infrastructure resilience plans as the effects of climate change become more apparent. Over 90% of respondents had not prepared a forward-looking stormwater infrastructure resilience plan. Additionally, nearly 75% of respondents had not updated local design standards for stormwater infrastructure according to recent data on the increasing volume and frequency of precipitation in their region. This preparedness gap, respondents report, largely results from a lack of proper funding to support long-term planning activities.

WEF plans to release full findings from the 2022 National MS4 Needs Assessment Survey later this year.

Top image courtesy of Bianca Pinto/WEF

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post National Stormwater Policy Forum Provides Updates on State of U.S. Stormwater Sector appeared first on Stormwater Report.

The Freshwater Challenge calls on governments to fast-track remediation efforts targeting the Earth’s impaired rivers, lakes, and wetlands through the remainder of this decade. By 2030, Freshwater Challenge participants aim to restore at least 300,000 km (186,000 mi) of polluted rivers and 350 million ha (865 million ac) of degraded wetlands worldwide. The initiative compels leaders in each participating country to develop clear, realistic, and time-bound action plans to restore freshwater resources within their borders.

The Freshwater Challenge complements similar UN-backed environmental pledges with a 2030 deadline, each part of a broader campaign called the UN Decade on Ecosystem Restoration. Previously agreed-upon goals include taking major steps to halt human contributions to biodiversity loss and restoring at least 1 billion ha (2.4 billion ac) of impaired land habitats.

“Healthy rivers, lakes, and wetlands underpin our societies and economies, yet they are routinely undervalued and overlooked,” said United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) Executive Director Inger Andersen in a release following the UN Water Conference in New York. “While countries have pledged to restore one billion hectares of land, the Freshwater Challenge is a critical first step in bringing a much-needed focus on freshwater ecosystems.”

Collaboration on Restoration

Under Freshwater Challenge terms, representatives of participating countries will revisit domestic policies to facilitate the design and implementation of large-scale freshwater restoration efforts. Working alongside regional and local jurisdictions, nonprofit groups, indigenous peoples, and other stakeholders, representatives will prioritize bodies of freshwater for expedited restoration efforts and ensure that proper funding mechanisms support these efforts.

Participating nations will reconvene later this year to report their findings and create a worldwide implementation plan. This plan, which will define specific restoration targets for each country, is due for release in March 2024, according to UNEP.

The Freshwater Challenge was proposed jointly by a coalition of six countries: Colombia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ecuador, Gabon, Mexico, and Zambia. During the UN Water Conference, representatives from Canada, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Romania, and the U.S. provided statements in support of the resolution. International coordinating partners behind the Freshwater Challenge include UNEP, the Secretariat of the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands (Gland, Switzerland), the International Union for Conservation of Nature and Natural Resources (Gland, Switzerland), the World Wildlife Fund (Washington, D.C.), The Nature Conservancy (Arlington, Virginia), Wetlands International (Wageningen, The Netherlands), and AB InBev (Leuven, Belgium).

“Protecting and restoring wetlands is a critical global priority — for the water we need, to tackle climate change and buffer extreme events, and to halt and reverse biodiversity loss,” said Musonda Mumba, Secretary-General for the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands, in a release. “The Freshwater Challenge will help catalyze broad-based action and give effect to our common global goals.”

Visit the UN website to watch the announcement of the Freshwater Challenge during the UN Water Conference.

A Worldwide Freshwater Crisis

The Freshwater Challenge aims to address a worrisome, worldwide trend of deterioration in freshwater bodies that has become especially pronounced within the last 50 years.

The World Wildlife Fund estimates that rampant pollution, intensified by the effects of climate change, has led freshwater ecosystems to experience loss of biodiversity about twice as quickly as have terrestrial and marine biomes. Today, the world’s lakes, rivers, and wetlands contain just under one-fifth of the healthy freshwater vertebrate communities they harbored in 1970.

“The clearest sign of the damage we have done — and are still doing — to our rivers, lakes, and wetlands is the staggering 83% collapse in freshwater species populations since 1970,” said Stuart Orr, Freshwater Lead for World Wildlife Fund International, in a release. “The Freshwater Challenge puts the right goals and frameworks in place to turn this around — benefitting not only nature but also people across the world.”

Wetlands have perhaps been hit the hardest. These vital ecosystems cover only about 6% of the Earth’s land surface yet provide a habitat for approximately 40% of the planet’s wildlife species, according to the Ramsar Convention on Wetlands. Wetlands significantly enhance resilience against coastal flooding and the effects of climate change, sequestering carbon up to 55 times faster than tropical rainforests and making coastal communities less susceptible to sea-level rise. Since 1970, about 35% of the world’s wetlands have been lost — disappearing about three times faster than forests.

Rivers, too, are facing a health crisis. Susceptible to widespread nutrient pollution that has worsened with climate change as well as plastic pollution, industrial waste discharges, the spread of invasive species, and other threats, the UN considers rivers and lakes the “most degraded ecosystems in the world.” Further, the effects of dams, reservoirs, and other engineered structures have greatly impaired natural river functions — a 2019 study by a team of 34 international researchers, for example, found that only one-third of the world’s largest rivers remain free-flowing.

Top image courtesy of U.S. Department of State

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post Largest-Ever Freshwater Restoration Campaign Launched at UN Water Conference appeared first on Stormwater Report.

The 100-page report details findings from a survey of 52 public-sector stormwater management organizations across the U.S. that serve approximately 44.5 million people in total. It establishes a national-level dataset that illustrates how the public sector currently uses green infrastructure, identifies remaining barriers to further implementation, celebrates successes, and helps jurisdictions of all sizes unlock green infrastructure’s potential to meet multiple community goals.

“We are excited to provide these new insights into the state of green infrastructure implementation in the public sector,” said Barbara Hopkins, Green Infrastructure Leadership Exchange Executive Director, in a release. “We believe this report will be a valuable resource for communities looking to expand their green infrastructure efforts while centering community and ensuring long-term sustainability.”

Changing Regulations Drive Investment

Although the frequency with which public-sector stormwater organizations choose green infrastructure solutions over traditional pumps and pipes varies widely, report findings suggest that green infrastructure adoption is on the rise. In fiscal year 2022, capital expenditures on green infrastructure among survey respondents ranged from zero dollars to more than USD $90 million, with a median spend of USD $280,000.

Operations and maintenance costs for green infrastructure also ran the gamut, representing a median spend of USD $100,000, but as high as USD $5.3 million. About 61% of respondents indicated that their green infrastructure spending has increased at least somewhat during the last 5 years, with several reporting significant increases.

These organizations reported that meeting regulatory requirements for water quality was by far the most common driver for greater investment in green infrastructure. Nearly 90% of respondents ranked regulations that specifically promote green infrastructure as an acceptable compliance option as a “very important” motivator for investment. Meeting regulations outpaced such priorities as enhancing flood resilience, mitigating pressure on aging drainage and wastewater systems, and improving residents’ quality of life.

Report authors describe that this finding demonstrates that regulators are increasingly acknowledging the value of green infrastructure as a viable approach to water quality improvement. Likewise, stormwater organizations are eager to take advantage of this increasing regulatory flexibility.

Remaining Barriers

However, significant barriers to green infrastructure adoption remain in the regulatory space. Many respondents reported technical and institutional hurdles that decrease their confidence in green infrastructure, such as insufficient data on green infrastructure’s return on investment given its site-specific nature, a lack of design standards provided in codes and ordinances, and a lack of coordination among different types of green infrastructure-minded agencies. In some cases, state regulations did not explicitly specify green infrastructure as an acceptable approach to meet water quality requirements.

Survey results uncovered a range of additional insights, including that

• strong green infrastructure champions, such as elected officials and senior government/agency personnel, can play a critical role in unlocking funding for green infrastructure and supporting policy changes that support green infrastructure;
• innovative procurement approaches for green infrastructure planning, design, and delivery are growing in popularity, such as design-build contracts, public-private partnerships, and incentive programs;
• the broader U.S. green infrastructure sector suffers from a lack of standardization, including differing metrics to measure costs and performance, which hinders the usefulness of case studies and demonstration projects; and
• many respondents struggle to effectively incorporate environmental equity into their green infrastructure programs.

Poised for Further Growth

During the next 5 years, survey results indicate that public-sector green infrastructure is poised for additional growth.

73% of respondents predicted at least a modest increase in annual green infrastructure spending during the next 5 years as compared to the 2022 fiscal year, 16% of which predicted a significant spending increase.

Respondents also signaled efforts to expand green infrastructure coverage in specific areas in the coming years, due in part to the spread of emerging programs that incentivize green infrastructure development on private property.

In line with existing trends, publicly owned roadways are expected to be the most common location for new green infrastructure during the next 5 years, with 69% of respondents indicating plans to increase expenditures in these settings. Similarly, more than 50% of respondents expected to increase green infrastructure coverage on both public and private parcels through retrofit initiatives.

The report recommends a range of actions available to local stormwater agencies, nonprofit groups, governments, and other organizations to help promote public-sector green infrastructure adoption.

Public stormwater agencies of all sizes, according to the report, should focus on building green infrastructure-focused partnerships with other agencies in their region as well as elected officials. They should leverage these partnerships to influence simple policy actions that create new flexibility for green infrastructure. For example, working to classify green infrastructure as a capital investment in local codes can unlock new municipal funding sources, and requiring green infrastructure inclusion in new construction and redevelopment projects would spur its use.

Nonprofit groups should work to facilitate peer exchange regionally by supporting standardized performance metrics, units of cost, and terminology. State and federal governments can formalize this process further by codifying industry consensus around these standards into regulations and best practices.

Read the full report, The State of Public Sector Green Stormwater Infrastructure 2022, and explore additional insights from the survey via the Green Infrastructure Leadership Exchange’s State of the Field Data Dashboard.

Top image courtesy of Brigitte Werner/Pixabay

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Justin Jacques is editor of Stormwater Report and a staff member of the Water Environment Federation (WEF). In addition to writing for WEF’s online publications, he also contributes to Water Environment & Technology magazine. Contact him at jjacques@wef.org.

The post Public-Sector Green Infrastructure on the Rise, New Report Finds appeared first on Stormwater Report.