"Presents and compares all major stormwater/runoff control strategies ; New data on pollutant removal efficiencies, design, costs, environmental impacts and more ; Where and why to use the best techniques for limiting/monitoring diffuse pollution ; Provides the tools to meet regulations and improve water quality in urban/suburban watersheds"--From publisher's description.
The infiltration approach to stormwater management involves the design, construction, and operation of engineered systems that infiltrate stormwater runoff into soils. These systems, referred to as "infiltration best management practices (BMPs)," are intended to reduce the volume of stormwater runoff and associated pollutants that discharge to stormwater systems and receive waters via surface runoff. The TRB National Cooperative Highway Research Program's NCHRP Research Report 922: Stormwater Infiltration in the Highway Environment: Guidance Manual supports evaluation, selection, siting, design, and construction of infiltration BMPs in the highway environment. It is also intended to identify limitations on the use of infiltration and determine the need for alternative non-infiltration-based stormwater management approaches.
Introduction -- Department of Transportation research preferences -- Review of published literature and potential research needs -- Summary of identified research gaps and needs -- Master bibliography -- Appendixes.
The rapid conversion of land to urban and suburban areas has profoundly altered how water flows during and following storm events, putting higher volumes of water and more pollutants into the nation's rivers, lakes, and estuaries. These changes have degraded water quality and habitat in virtually every urban stream system. The Clean Water Act regulatory framework for addressing sewage and industrial wastes is not well suited to the more difficult problem of stormwater discharges. This book calls for an entirely new permitting structure that would put authority and accountability for stormwater discharges at the municipal level. A number of additional actions, such as conserving natural areas, reducing hard surface cover (e.g., roads and parking lots), and retrofitting urban areas with features that hold and treat stormwater, are recommended.
Discusses the amounts & types of pollutants derived from vehicles as well as other sources; reports on the pollutants found in highway runoff; the effect of highway runoff on streams, rivers, lakes, wetlands, soil water, & groundwater; the important constituents in runoff from construction sites & analyzes the effects on receiving water quality; & the results from studies of source management as well as permanent pollution controls to protect receiving waters from the possible effects of highway runoff. Contains 55 tables & figures.