The U.S. Flood Control Program at 75: Environmental Issues1

Black, Peter E., 2012. The U.S. Flood Control Program at 75: Environmental Issues. Journal of the American Water Resources Association (JAWRA) 48(2): 244‐255. DOI: 10.1111/j.1752‐1688.2011.00609.x Abstract: Recent, recurring, and increased magnitude floods adversely challenge long‐held and erroneous concepts of flood control. This article focuses on the environmental issues with comprehensively reviewed essentials of the United States (U.S.) riverine Flood Control Program, including news reports, scientific articles, books, and landmark treatises. For the past three‐quarters of a century, U.S. floods have continued (and will continue) to occur, causing increasing property damage with growing fiscal loss. Reasons include inattention to fundamental principles of physics, hydrology, and ecology. There are also important challenges involving environmental policy, economics, and common sense. Measures afforded by the existing program encourage and enable investment in floodplains while violating a variety of natural principles that make the situation worse. This detailed review includes the questionable (actually untrue) justification in the document‐setting policy for the 1936 Omnibus Flood Control Act. The well‐documented evidence is overwhelming. An alternative approach is presented that would enable and celebrate natural floods, managing their ecological and hydrological values, and not attempting to control them.     

Sustainable land-use planning: revitalising a flood prone office park

This paper describes an applied research project that used a sustainable land-use planning approach to examine flood hazard mitigation alternatives in a 536-acre developed office park complex. A watershed-wide assessment including floodplain remapping and modelling of low-impact and large stormwater improvements throughout the upper watershed revealed limited impact on reducing flooding downstream in the environs of the office park during large storms. Thus emphasis had to be given to recommending retroactive sustainable land-use development actions such as relocating buildings and roadways out of the 100-year floodplain, which involves creating a mixed-use overlay district on high elevations, and restoring the floodplain.     

Full Water‐Cycle Monitoring in an Urban Catchment Reveals Unexpected Water Transfers (Detroit MI,USA)

A goal in urban water management is to reduce the volume of stormwater runoff in urban systems and the effect of combined sewer overflows into receiving waters. Effective management of stormwater runoff in urban systems requires an accounting of various components of the urban water balance. To that end, precipitation, evapotranspiration (ET), sewer flow, and groundwater in a 3.40‐hectare sewershed in Detroit, Michigan were monitored to capture the response of the sewershed to stormwater flow prior to implementation of stormwater control measures. Monitoring results indicate that stormflow in sewers was not initiated unless rain depth was 3.6 mm or greater. ET removed more than 40% of the precipitation in the sewershed, whereas pipe flow accounted for 19%–85% of the losses. Flows within the sewer that could not be associated with direct precipitation indicate an unexpected exchange of water between the leaky sewer and the groundwater system, pathways through abandoned or failing residential infrastructure, or a combination of both. Groundwater data indicate that groundwater flows into the leaky combined sewer rather than out. This research demonstrates that urban hydrologic fluxes can modulate the local water cycle in complex ways which affect the efficiency of the wastewater system, effectiveness of stormwater management, and, ultimately, public health.     

The Ability of Urban Residential Lawns to Disconnect Impervious Area from Municipal Sewer Systems1

Abstract: Runoff from urban catchments depends largely on the amount of impervious surface and the connectivity of these surfaces to the storm sewer drainage system. In residential areas, pervious lawns can be used to help manage stormwater runoff by intercepting and infiltrating runoff from impervious surfaces. The goal of this research was to develop and evaluate a simple method for estimating the reduction in stormwater runoff that results when runoff from an impervious surface (e.g., rooftop) is directed onto a pervious surface (e.g., lawn). Fifty‐two stormwater runoff reduction tests were conducted on six residential lawns in Madison, Wisconsin during the summer of 2004. An infiltration‐loss model that requires inputs of steady‐state infiltration rate, abstraction (defined here as surface storage, vegetation interception and cumulative total infiltration minus steady‐state infiltration during the period prior to steady‐state), and inundated area was evaluated using experimental data. The most accurate results were obtained using the observed steady‐state infiltration rates and inundated areas for each test, combined with a constant abstraction for all tests [root mean squared (RMS) difference = 1.0 cm]. A second case utilized lawn‐averaged steady‐state infiltration rates, a regression estimate of inundated area based on flow‐path length, and lawn‐specific abstractions based on infiltration rate (RMS difference = 2.2 cm). In practice, infiltration rates will likely be determined using double‐ring infiltration measurements (RMS difference = 3.1 cm) or soil texture (RMS difference = 5.7 cm). A generalized form of the model is presented and used to estimate annual stormwater runoff volume reductions for Madison. Results indicate the usefulness of urban lawns as a stormwater management practice and could be used to improve urban runoff models that incorporate indirectly connected impervious areas.     

Regulating Industrial Stormwater: State Permits,Municipal Implementation,and a Protocol for Prioritization1

Abstract:  This research evaluated the effectiveness of regulations for stormwater pollutants originating from industrial facilities. Industrial facilities discharging stormwater are subject to General Permits implemented by state and federal agencies, which require facility operators to identify themselves and to implement pollution prevention measures. An overlying system of permits require Municipal Separate Storm Sewer System operators to identify and inspect facilities in their jurisdictions capable of discharging substantial pollutant loads into stormwater conveyances, introducing more active regulation and strategic prioritization, but with unequal implementation in different urban regions. This research evaluated the interaction between the regulations and ways in which the regulations succeed, or fail, at protecting water quality. The research evaluated potential for pollutant discharges at 136 industrial facilities in Pinellas County, Florida, using telephone interviews; off-site facility visits; and on-site facility inspections, targeting four industrial categories: wood products; stone, clay, glass, and concrete products; fabricated metal products; and electronic products. Results documented that a large proportion of facilities subject to General Permits conduct few or no activities likely to produce stormwater pollutants, indicating that the regulations’ equal treatment of all facilities may constitute overregulation. The research developed a methodology to assess facilities using intensity of industrial activities exposed to stormwater, a rational measurement that could regularize municipal agencies’ requirements and prioritize implementation toward facilities with the potential to impact receiving water quality.     

自然沟渠控制村镇降雨径流中氮磷污染的主要作用机制

以四川盆地紫色丘陵区林山村镇为例,分析降雨径流过程中氮磷在自然沟渠内的空间变化特征和不同控制机制的净化能力,研究了自然沟渠控制村镇降雨径流中氮磷的主要作用机制.研究结果表明,除NO3--N浓度在沿程上呈先减后增而后再减的趋势外,其它氮磷污染物(TN、PN、NH4+-N、TP、PP和PO43-·P)均为沿程递减趋势.溶解态氮是降雨径流氮素在空间沿程上的主要迁移形态,溶解态磷是流量限制型事件降雨径流磷紊空间沿程的主要迁移形态,而颗粒态磷是物质限制型事件降雨径流磷素空间沿程的主要迁移形态.泥沙截控固持是自然沟渠控制降雨径流氮磷污染的主要作用机制,有效降低径流中颗粒物浓度和拦截泥沙是控制降雨径流氮磷污染的关键.沉降段和沉沙凼具有明显的泥沙及颗粒态氮磷截控固持作用,可较好地去除村镇降雨径流中的氮磷颗粒态污染物,平均氮磷去除量分别为144.51、65.20 g·m-2(平均雨量37.85mm).植物吸收是植被段氮磷去除的重要途径,在雨季共吸收氮磷分别可达82.69、12.52 g·m-2.跌落曝氧也是降雨径流氮磷污染控制的重要作用机制,跌落段对NH4+-N的平均去除负荷为15.05 g·m-2.     

Value of Artificial Habitats for Amphibian Reproduction in Altered Landscapes

Abstract:  Installation and maintenance of stormwater ponds to detain and treat runoff from impervious surfaces is a common method of stormwater control in developed areas. That these ponds capture pollutants, however, is of concern for wildlife species that use the ponds, particularly pond-breeding amphibians. To assess the relative contribution of stormwater ponds to the persistence of amphibian populations in suburban landscapes, we compared amphibian use of stormwater ponds and other available wetlands in suburban and forested watersheds. We surveyed three suburban and three primarily forested first-order watersheds to identify all potential wetlands that might serve as breeding sites for pond-breeding amphibians. We performed call, egg-mass, and larval surveys to measure breeding effort at each wetland in spring and summer 2007 and 2008. In suburban watersheds most (89%) of the wetlands that had breeding activity were either stormwater ponds or otherwise artificial. This pattern was also evident in the forested watersheds, where amphibians were primarily found breeding in wetlands created by past human activity. Late-stage larvae were found only in anthropogenic wetlands in all study areas because the remaining natural wetlands did not hold water long enough for larvae to complete development. Our results suggest that in urban and suburban landscapes with naturally low densities of wetlands, wetlands created by current or historic land uses may be as important to amphibian conservation as natural wetlands or pools and that management strategies directed at urban and suburban landscapes should recognize and incorporate human-created wetlands.     

Temporal variation of heavy metal pollution in urban stormwater runoff

Stormwater runoff from three types of urban surfaces, a parking lot, a street, and a building roof, was monitored during four rainfall events that occurred in the one-year period from June 2009 to June 2010. The event mean concentrations (EMC) of dissolved copper (Cu), lead (Pb), zinc (Zn), manganese (Mn), and iron (Fe) exceeded China’s National Water Quality Standards for Surface Water. The degree of heavy metal contamination was related to the type of underlying surfaces. Additionally, the concentration of dissolved heavy metals peaked shortly after the runoff began and then declined sharply as a result of adequate flushing. First flush effects of varying degrees were also observed during all of the monitored rainfall events based on the first flush ratio (FF₂₅). Redundancy analysis revealed that four environmental variables (rainfall depth, intensity, antecedent dry weather period and type of underlying surface) had significant effects on the strengths of the first flush effects, accounting for 72.9% of the variation in the FF₂₅. Dissolved metals presented varying first flush effects on different underlying surfaces that occurred in the following relative order: parking lot>roof>road for low intensity and high runoff volume rainfall events; parking lot>road>roof for high intensity and low runoff volume events. The relative strength of the first flush for dissolved heavy metals was Fe, Mn>Cu, Zn>Pb.     

Illinois State Water Survey Bulletin 75: New Precipitation Frequency Study for Illinois

Storm frequency estimates and their temporal distributions are important in determining estimates of runoff or peak flow rates in many engineering and hydrological problems. Illinois State Water Survey Bulletin 70 has been serving as the design rainfall standard in Illinois since its publication in 1989. Although Bulletin 70 represented the best available data at the time of its publication, the standards needed to be reevaluated and updated after more than three decades and with the growing evidence of the nonstationary nature of heavy precipitation. The trends in heavy precipitation in Illinois prompted the creation of a new frequency study named Bulletin 75, providing precipitation frequencies for event durations ranging from 5 min to 10 days and for recurrence intervals ranging from 2 months to 500 years. The results are presented for the same 10 geographic sections in Illinois as in Bulletin 70 to maintain the continuity of hydrologic studies and compatibility with regulations. The primary goal of this paper is to outline some of the key methodological issues and challenges, to compare the results with the previous sources, and to highlight the effects of the changing precipitation standards on the development of amendments to existing ordinances. Lake County in Illinois, as one of the most affected urban areas with the highest change in heavy precipitation, was selected to illustrate issues related to the application of modified precipitation standards.     

城市雨水径流中溶解性有机物的分子化学多样性

雨水径流中溶解性有机物(dissolved organic matter,DOM)是影响城市水生态环境安全的重要因素.为了揭示城市不透水路面雨水径流(pavement runoff,PR)和绿地雨水径流(greenland runoff,GR)中DOM组分特征及其来源上的区别,应用具有超高分辨率的傅里叶变换离子回旋共振质谱(fourier transform ion cyclotron resonance mass spectrometer,FT-ICR-MS)对两者的DOM分子化学多样性进行表征,并从DOM分子化学多样性与环境因子之间的斯皮尔曼(Spearman)相关性的角度进行分析.结果表明:①在分子累计到达饱和状态下,PR-DOM的分子累计数量(12498种)远大于GR-DOM(7015种),其分子分布(150～750)比GR-DOM(150～850)更为集中,且相对分子质量普遍小于GR-DOM;②根据分子组成及其相关性分析,PR-DOM和GR-DOM的组分及来源存在明显差异.PR-DOM组成受人为活动影响较大,其主要成分(CHOS)中含有大量可能来源于人为使用的表面活性剂的磺酸...