Low Impact Development Management Strategies for Wet Weather Flow (WWF) Control

Low Impact Development (LID) is rapidly being recognized as an ecologically sustainable and cost effective strategy to protect receiving waters from the water quality, volume, magnitude, and frequency effects of stormwater runoff. The LID strategy is based on creating hydrologically functional equivalent design features that replicate the pre-development conditions through the use of pollution prevention, precision engineering, and integrated micro-scale Best Management Practices (BMPs) that are distributed at a landscape level throughout a site. The use of this approach is rapidly gaining acceptance in suburban and developing areas. The use of micro-scale approaches in urban areas is limited in this country, although it has been successfully employed in many areas of Europe for a significant period of time. This paper presents the management strategies, protocols, and technological approaches that will incorporated in the development of an LID management strategy for the control of WWF in urban areas. This project is being funded by a grant through USEPA Region 3 and Office of Water and is being coordinated with other recent urban LID efforts that are currently taking place in the Washington, D.C. area.