Spatial Considerations of Distributed Green Stormwater Infrastructure Implementation
Abstract
Green infrastructure (GI) is an approach to stormwater management that promotes natural processes of infiltration and evapotranspiration, reducing surface runoff to conventional stormwater drainage infrastructure. Because GI best management practices are distributed throughout the landscape, cities can implement them as opportunities within already existing areas arise, potentially resulting in a wide range of network configurations. In this research, we present empirical evidence showing how the spatial pattern of GI implementation changes over time, and what this may mean for adaptive management of the system. Using a combination of voluntary residential GI program participation data, scenario analysis of a high-resolution surface-subsurface hydrological model (ParFlow.CLM), and empirical flow monitoring data, all from GI programs implemented in Washington DC, we suggest a continuum of uncertainty present in characterizing the social-environmental GI system. We find that the growth of a community's GI program can be expected to cluster together based on the spatial nature of information flow. Spatial clustering can result in differences in mitigation of surface runoff, and such differences will be exacerbated during multiday rain events. However, noise in urban flow monitoring data may also make it more difficult to detect differences in runoff mitigation associated with GI implementation.
- Publication:
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AGU Fall Meeting Abstracts
- Pub Date:
- December 2018
- Bibcode:
- 2018AGUFM.H51F..06L
- Keywords:
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- 0493 Urban systems;
- BIOGEOSCIENCESDE: 1847 Modeling;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1878 Water/energy interactions;
- HYDROLOGYDE: 1880 Water management;
- HYDROLOGY