STORMWATER MANAGEMENT RESOURCES

• Federal Money Is Coming To Fix Aging Flood Control Systems — But Plans All Too Often Reflect Historical Patterns And Not Future Risks

  Heavy downpours and a thick snowpack in the Western mountains and Upper Midwest have put communities in several states at risk of flooding this spring — or already under water. Help is coming, as Congress has authorized billions of dollars for infrastructure projects under the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act in 2021. But there's a problem: New infrastructure planning frequently relies on historical flood patterns for its benchmarks rather than forecasts of changing risks as the climate warms.

• Salt Lake City Airport Construction Project – Keeping The Water Clean

  Learn about the solutions that have been integral to ground and storm water management for a number of large, highly complex projects at Salt Lake City International Airport. 

• Epic Snow From All Those Atmospheric Rivers In The West Is Starting To Melt, And The Flood Danger Is Rising

  A meteorologist with the Center for Western Weather and Water Extremes at the University of California San Diego’s Scripps Institution of Oceanography explains how 2023’s storms compare to past extremes, and what to expect in the future.

• Is The Western Drought Finally Ending? That Depends On Where You Look

  After three years of extreme drought, the Western U.S. is finally getting a break. Mountain ranges are covered in deep snow, and water reservoirs in many areas are filling up following a series of atmospheric rivers that brought record rain and snowfall to large parts of the region. Many people are looking at the snow and water levels and asking: Is the drought finally over?

• To Clean Up England's Rivers We Need To Know How Much Sewage Is Dumped — But Water Firms Won't Tell Us

  UK environment secretary Thérèse Coffey has demanded that water companies share plans for how they will reduce sewage discharges into rivers. They could start by coming clean on how much sewage is being dumped. If we don’t know how much sewage is actually being released — for at least the worst offending locations — we won’t be able to measure environmental and industry improvement with any confidence.

• NZ Cities Urgently Need To Become 'Spongier' — But System Change Will Be Expensive

  Floods, storms, and heatwaves are becoming more frequent and intense in a changing climate, and cities are poorly prepared for what is coming. Perhaps not surprisingly, there is now a lot more talk about the need for “sponge cities.” The basic principle is to manage urban flood risks by utilizing more natural drainage and flood-resilient systems and material.

• Stormwater Management Is A Worldwide Challenge

  Last month, I wrote about San Francisco's great rain garden/bio-retention basin project. Strategically placed sunken curb cuts, swales, or park features collect stormwater and let it filter into the ground, reducing the pressure on overwhelmed storm drains and sewers.

• Rain Gardens Guarding San Francisco

  Laurie Lauria and I spent last week moving out of San Francisco up to Napa, California, dodging the raindrops and taking advantage of a few dry days in this remarkably stormy winter — weather that makes this a perfect time to talk about the need to capture rainwater and protect overwhelmed urban sewer systems.

• As Heatwaves And Floods Hit Cities Worldwide, These Places Are Pioneering Solutions

  Climate change is going just as badly for cities as we have been warned it would. Extreme weather is increasingly common and severe globally. Australian cities have endured a number of recent disastrous events. It’ll get worse, too. The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) fact sheet outlining impacts on human settlements is a very sobering read.

• Flood Forecasts In Real-Time With Block-By-Block Data Could Save Lives — A New Machine Learning Method Makes It Possible

  I am a hydrologist who sometimes works in remote areas, so interpreting weather data and forecast uncertainty is always part of my planning. As someone who once nearly drowned while crossing a flooded river where I shouldn’t have, I am also acutely conscious of the extreme human vulnerability stemming from not knowing exactly where and when a flood will strike.