Application of a Monitoring Plan for Storm-Water Control Measures in the Philadelphia Region

Abstract

Storm-water control measures (SCMs), also known as storm-water best management practices (BMPs), are increasingly being used to mitigate the impacts of development and restore the hydrologic cycle. This paper presents a three-tiered monitoring plan that can be used to determine the effectiveness of structural, nonproprietary SCMs in the Northeast United States. The monitoring plan offers three levels of monitoring: high, medium, and low. This 1-2-3 approach is common in environmental monitoring. The monitoring protocol integrates hydrologic, water quality, and ecological factors and recommendations for equipment with the level of monitoring. The monitoring plan is then applied to a rain garden on Villanova University's campus in Villanova, Pennsylvania, and a cost analysis of the different monitoring levels is provided.

Sustainability

“…(Gomez-Baggethun and Barton, 2013)] considering the spatial distribution of green infrastructure , ecological networks and corridors (Andrade et al, 2013;Hepcan, 2013;Marcucci and Jordan, 2013;Mikkonen and Moilanen, 2013;Patru-Stupariu et al, 2013), urban-rural gradients (Barbati et al, 2013), street trees (Seamans, 2013), and urban forests (Young, 2013), land use in non-urbanized areas (La Rosa and Privitera, 2013), energy and economic performance under future climate conditions (Chan and Chow, 2013), opportunity costs of not investing in GI (Schaeffler and Swilling, 2013), stormwater management and carbon sequestration (Charlesworth et al, 2013), socio-economic factors and human well-being , human well-being (Andrade et al, 2013;Angelstam et al, 2013), carbon sequestration and noise attenuation (Gratani and Varone, 2013), carbon sequestration , hydrologic, water quality and ecological factors (Welker et al, 2013), public heatlh, safety, environmental and social goals (Porse, 2013) and sustainability (Newell et al, 2013).…”

Moving Toward Dynamic and Data-Driven GSI Maintenance

“…However, there is a common opportunity and need for improved data management and communication that leverages existing knowledge and experience on GSI maintenance to improve efficiencies and reduce costs. Experience with frequency and cost of GSI maintenance from the literature (Caltrans 2004;Hunt et al 2005;Erickson et al 2013;Houle et al 2013;Welker et al 2013;Clary and Piza 2017;Erickson et al 2018;PWD 2019;BMP and TC 2019) can be combined with performance monitoring and inspection data, an understanding of dynamic hydrologic processes (Traver and Ebrahimian 2017;Ebrahimian et al 2021), data management tools, and new technologies to improve operational decisions and provide a framework for more cost-effective maintenance activities.…”

Evaluation of Soil Class Proxies for Hydrologic Performance of In Situ Bioinfiltration Systems

“…Many jurisdictions consider bioretention to be a water quality filter and mandate the use of underdrains at all sites. However, bioinfiltration has been shown to be successful at infiltrating significant volumes of water for periods exceeding a decade, while significantly reducing pollutant loads from the watershed (e.g., Emerson and Traver 2008;Davis et al 2012;Komlos and Traver 2012;Welker et al 2013). When underdrains are not strictly mandated for all sites, there is still a lack of consensus about the minimum soil infiltration criteria to determine the necessity of an underdrain.…”