Stormwater best management practices: Review of current practices and potential incorporation in SWAT

Stormwater Best Management Practices (BMPs) are employed to mitigate high peak flow, flow volumes, and transport of pollutants from urbanized areas. Many of these structures are widely used throughout the United States, including wet ponds, stormwater wetlands, bioretention cells, level spreader - vegetative filter strips, swales, permeable pavements, green roofs, and water harvest systems. Two different metrics of effectiveness are presented: pollutant removal efficiency and effluent concentration. However, the effectiveness of many of these BMPs has been limited due to a lack of assessment and documentation. Once documented, they become a valuable source of information for modeling purposes. The possible use and form of these monitored data for modeling and how the BMPs could be represented in a watershed model is discussed. For this analysis, the Soil and Water Assessment Tool (SWAT) model is considered because of its wide use and successful track record of modeling rural watersheds throughout the world. An ongoing effort for development of urban modeling tools in SWAT is also highlighted.

Stormwater best management practices: Review of current practices and potential incorporation in SWAT Conference Paper