Water Environment & Reuse Foundation Awarded Grant From EPA For Stormwater Infrastructure Alternatives Research

The Water Environment & Reuse Foundation (WE&RF) was recently awarded a $1.95M grant from the EPA to investigate cost-effective methods for communities to best control stormwater runoff. The goal is to develop tools and a Life Cycle Cost (LCC) framework for stormwater infrastructure alternatives that are transparent and peer reviewed.

WE&RF’s research will focus on cost-effective options for dealing with aging water infrastructure systems that are often expensive for many communities. The LCC framework will take an integrated planning approach that incorporates: data collection of construction, operations, maintenance, and replacement costs of grey and green infrastructure solutions; decision support tools that are publically available to the urban water community; and input from the community to ensure their needs are reflected. This integrated Decision Support System (DSS) will be evaluated and validated by a group of model scenarios including population growth, land use change, and projected climate scenarios.

The framework will create increased confidence for decision makers and regulators when comparing life cycle costs and benefits of using alternatives in managing stormwater runoff, such as green infrastructure solutions. In addition, this integrated framework will enable communities to analyze risk tolerance for stormwater services with their associated costs, including addressing climate resiliency. The resulting data and decision support tools will work at scale with urban water communities, and will foster innovation and collaboration.

About The Water Environment & Reuse Foundation
The Water Environment & Reuse Foundation (WE&RF) is a 501c3 charitable corporation seeking to identify, support, and disseminate research that enhances the quality and reliability of water for natural systems and communities with an integrated approach to resource recovery and reuse; while facilitating interaction among practitioners, educators, researchers, decision makers, and the public.