Residential Manmade Lake System Design for Storm Water Treatment

Aquascape facilities have traditionally been considered ornamental and landscape features primarily serving aesthetic purposes in golf courses, parks and residential developments. However, aquascapes can be applied with innovative design elements to function as primary infrastructure facilities in urban developments, replacing typical stormwater facilities and adding value to the community. These specialized types of aquascape systems integrate a living ecosystem into an urban environment, which maintains water quality through natural biological processes. Planned aquascape features, particularly in semi-arid areas, offer a combination of many unique advantages for storm water management as well as other benefits that are not available in conventional engineered systems, including: (1) continuous year-round natural treatment process, (2) storm water conveyance and storage, (3) exceptional water quality, (4) flood protection, (5) combined landuse elements, (6) significantly reduced infrastructure costs, (7) dry weather flow treatment, (8) landscape and aesthetic treatment with natural water system, (9) increased surrounding land values, (10) natural ecosystem benefits, (11) recreational design feature, and (12) urban design element for communities. The necessity for storm water pollution control has received increased public attention, especially with the escalating environmental regulations focusing on non-point source pollution and protection of receiving waters. As of March 2003, the Phase 2 portion of the NPDES (National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System) storm water regulations require developers and municipalities alike to more seriously address storm water quality through the implementation standard structural control measures or Best Management Practices (BMPs). These methods generally have limited pollutant removal effectiveness, perform single functions, require considerable land, maintenance issues, construction costs, difficult integrating with the land plan, and are typically unsightly having limited aesthetic appeal to the community. Integrating large scale specialty aquascape systems through constructed lakes, ponds, small creeks, or other water features can replace traditional underground drainage infrastructure and provide highly effective storm water treatment resulting in water quality not available through other conventional methods.