Stormwater management is very important for your health and safety as well as for the environment.
What is Stormwater Management?
The precipitation falling from the skies including sleet, rain or melting snow is termed as stormwater. These storm-waters can be managed by development companies and contractors.
We see changes in natural patterns of water runoff as land is developed further.
The construction of roads, as well as parking lots and buildings alters the volume and velocity of natural runoff. This produces a significant need to properly transport the storm-water to its destination outside the city.
Why is stormwater management so important?
The natural infiltration of runoff is interrupted when we make roads, buildings and other structures; this results in increased rates of runoff and flooding.
The highly impervious surface area leads to litter being added to streams, rivers and creeks which eventually leads to polluting larger water bodies.
This is exactly what happens in Chesapeake. The increased runoff and decreasing water infiltration into the ground creates a need for storm water management. Stormwater management will provide sufficient benefits to people and the environment.
The traditional way of stormwater management usually includes the detention of ponds dotted among communities.
These ponds detain the stormwater runoff, holding it and slowly releasing it over time to the nearest water body. This seems like a great plan to manage the stormwater, but it has its own shortcomings.
The traditional ponds are not adequately sized to even handle what would now be considered minimum water-quantity storm event.
The traditional ponds won’t be able to hold large storm events and many were not designed with the purpose of providing groundwater infiltration. Hence, these conventional ponds would not solve the root problem.
There are three components which are considered in contemporary stormwater management design.
- Control of excess runoff volume and velocity
- Groundwater infiltration
- Effective treatment of water quality
Controlling the velocity and volume of stormwater provides very important functions to people including flood risk management and damage prevention.
The groundwater discharge is also a very important part of stormwater management as it helps to maintain the base flow into nearby wetlands and streams which reduces the overall volume of runoff which helps to reduce erosion.
The most important reason for stormwater management is preventing water pollution by protecting the quality of water draining down the sink. This would be very essential as it prevents harm to the ecosystem as well as promotes community health, resiliency and function.
Runoff can include many pollutants such as bacteria and organic matter from trash and oil and grease from leaky cars on the roads, toxic chemicals and more.
The pollutants also carry nitrogen and phosphorus which might be beneficial to aquatic systems in small quantities but in large quantities they are detrimental to the environment and the health as they cause nutrient pollution.
Solutions to runoff stormwater management, who can help?
The state and the local laws look upon what is discharged into the water bodies and how the wastewater can be treated before discharging.
The development departments of local government have to get permits from the federal state so the local government can repair, expand or construct new surfaces in such a way that it does not impact stormwater management negatively.
Also, when stormwater management companies implement effective stormwater management practices, permits are required.
We must take care of our environment in order to thrive. We can protect our water resources and ecosystems by effective stormwater management strategies.
We shall invest in our better future by trying to promote stormwater management today.
You can do your part by controlling what you drain down the sink! Chemicals from shampoos, conditioners, soaps all contribute to stormwater in one way or another.
We can start by using Eco-friendly organic products which don’t harm the environment. Excessive water usage is also a reason why there is excessive stormwater runoff to deal with. A good way would be to control your household water usage.