Automation Innovations in Stormwater Modeling Case Study: City of Ramsey, Minnesota, Surface Water Management Plan

Automation innovations in Autodesk's recently released water resource engineering software allows civil engineers to more efficiently and economically complete stormwater analysis and design projects. This paper highlights the scope, principal findings, and conclusions of a water resource management study conducted by Bolton & Menk, Inc. for the City of Ramsey, MN that utilized hydrologic modeling software from Autodesk called Storm and Sanitary Analysis (SSA), formerly called StormNET and herein referred to as Autodesk's SSA. The overall scope was to combine research, mapping, land use analysis/planning and hydraulic design to create a detailed design tool that the City could use for growth planning and infrastructure replacement. A 30 square mile metropolitan area consisting of 7 separate watershed management areas and approximately 4100 individual hydraulic elements was modeled using Autodesk's SSA. The seamless integration of Autodesk's SSA with Computer Aided Drafting (CAD) and Geographic Information System (GIS) software allowed the project to be completed under the aggressive deadline of 5 weeks. The hydrologic models, combined with an extensive Surface Water Management Plan (SWMP) report, was delivered to the City to be used as a set of planning tools to minimize the impacts of future development goals on the fragile water resources in and around the City of Ramsey.