Urban Runoff Control Master Planning

The thesis of this paper is that rational planning requires conjunctive consideration of the quantity and quality aspects of urban runoff within a comprehensive, multiple-use framework. Explored are some of the more obvious arguments with reference to land-use factors, economic evaluations, flood control considerations, performance simulation, and metropolitan water resource inventories. There appear to be very few master plans extant that have integrated water quantity management with water quality management. Given the institutional constraints in metropolitan areas, perhaps the most that can be expected is adoption of an integrated, comprehensive, or systems approach to urban runoff planning. However, such an approach is subtle in a documentary sense, and more rational conjunctive master planning may be in progress than external indications seem to imply.