Spatial Sustainability Assessment of Green Stormwater Infrastructure for Surface Transportation Planning, Phase I, Project Description

Abstract

National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System (NPDES) regulates that transportation authorities are responsible for managing the stormwater runoff that carries pollutants from the transportation-adjacent land and vehicles. The proper stormwater management can help control flooding and the runoff pollutants that may impair water environment and threaten the ecosystem and human health. Green infrastructure is a stormwater management approach with many economic and human health benefits including: flood mitigation, erosion control, improved water quality, groundwater recharge, reduced energy demand during construction, enhanced aesthetics and access to green space, and preferred aquatic (fish) habitat. Unlike grey stormwater infrastructure systems that are often large and centralized, green stormwater infrastructure can be applied at different spatial scales and decentralized arrangements. Green infrastructures like permeable pavements, bioswales, bioretention, and constructed wetlands have been adopted and implemented in the transportation infrastructure design. However, such implementation is project-based without analysis at system level or sewer scale. A framework is needed to design and evaluate the integration of green stormwater infrastructure in transportations planning at systems level. The overall goal of the proposed project is to develop a modeling framework integrating hydrological simulation, water quality modeling, life cycle assessment (LCA) and cost analysis (LCCA) that can be used for design and planning for surface transportation with spatial implementation of green infrastructures. The project will be conducted in phases and the major task in Year 1 is to collect information on existing green infrastructure in Tampa from various sources (e.g., EPA, City of Tampa transportation and stormwater services, the Peninsular Florida Landscape Conservation Cooperative) and create a GIS layer of green infrastructure that can be overlaid with transportation and grey stormwater infrastructure network.