America faces a looming water infrastructure crisis. Nationwide, conventional urban and exurban storm water management systems increasingly require extensive replacement and repair, leaving residents susceptible to flood, infrastructure breakdown, and contamination risks. However, estimated U.S. stormwater system rehabilitation costs run in the billions, an expense that many municipalities are unable to afford. To address this problem, officials in several U.S and international cities are turning to an urban design-based alternative, termed green infrastructure, to supplement conventional surface and subsurface drainage systems. Based on core principles from landscape ecology, landscape architecture, and civil engineering, this green infrastructure approach purports to reduce flood susceptibility and reduce drainage infrastructure costs by decoupling runoff from existing stormwater management systems. However, relatively little scholarship has investigated these claims, and more thorough investigation of this novel strategy is required to advance its capabilities. In this research, I ask:
1. What are the unsaturated and saturated infiltration rates of specific built green infrastructure projects?
2. What is the upper limit of green infrastructure-based stormwater infiltration and runoff mitigation for a select urban area?
3. What are the projected near-term impacts of climate change on flood control and runoff infiltration for Susquehanna River sub-watersheds?
Results/Conclusions
To address this gap, this research will employ both empirical observation and modeling approaches – the Environmental Protection Agency-funded WinSLAMM (Source Loading and Management Model for Windows) and the Natural Capital Project’s InVEST (Integrated Valuation System of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs) – to predict current and future flood hydrology of several Pennsylvania sub-watersheds, quantify the infiltration capacity of pilot green infrastructure projects, and develop a comprehensive theoretical green infrastructure plan for an urban area that optimizes runoff capture and infiltration.