Impacts of Impervious Cover and Other Factors on Storm-Water Quality in Austin, Tex.
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 14, Issue 4
Abstract
Changes in impervious cover result in changes in both urban water quality and quantity. The changes in storm-water quantity have been studied for many years; however, the impacts of impervious cover on storm-water quality are not as well understood. This paper examines the impacts of impervious cover on both storm-water quality loads and concentrations using data collected from 38 storm-water monitoring stations in Austin, Tex., between 1985 and 2005. The writer determined whether there was a significant relationship between impervious cover and the mean concentrations of several pollutants, including nutrients, metals, solids, and bacteria. In cases where no significant relationship existed, the data were examined to determine whether a difference in storm-water runoff quality from developed and undeveloped areas existed. A final comparison was performed using impervious cover and land use as independent variables and mean watershed concentrations of several common pollutants as dependant variables. This paper reports a complete methodology to estimate mean storm-water concentrations and annual loads in the Austin, Tex., area. This methodology was also tested for predicting event loads. While the event predictions were poor, the results were similar to other event loads prediction methods.
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Information & Authors
Information
Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 14 • Issue 4 • April 2009
Pages: 316 - 323
Copyright
© 2009 ASCE.
History
Received: Jan 31, 2008
Accepted: Jul 15, 2008
Published online: Apr 1, 2009
Published in print: Apr 2009
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