Project Title
Performance and Effectiveness of Urban Green Infrastructure: Maximizing Benefits at the Subwatershed Scale through Measurement, Modeling, and Community-Based Implementation
 
 
 
   
Performance and Effectiveness of Urban Green Infrastructure: Maximizing Benefits at the Subwatershed Scale through Measurement, Modeling, and Community-Based Implementation
This broadly interdisciplinary research program included multi-year monitoring of three Green Infrastructure (GI) sites that control stormwater runoff in Philadelphia's Wingohocking Sewershed, which is the largest of the city's Combined Sewer Overflow (CSO) areas. The data obtained was used to calibrate an advanced 3-D subsurface flow model to evaluate the effectiveness of these and future GI installations.
We have also calculated the potential for widespread adoption of GI technologies throughout the city to substantially reduce CSO flows of sewage into the city's rivers and creeks, while also taking into account costs and community co-benefits. Our research team has engaged community partners at each stage of the project to assure that our results and conclusions will be useful to Philadelphia's neighborhoods and city government during the city's GI adoption process. We have developed a geographical method for calculating an "equity index" to examine to what extent GI benefits are helping to improve measures of social equity across the city.
We have developed new decision support tools that evaluate placement of GI technologies on landscapes at the subwatershed level. We have developed and tested the application of methods for extending these tools to include modeling adaptive management strategies for reducing future uncertainties related to the city's long-term CSO reduction goals. These tools are being applied in two case studies in the Wingohocking and Mill Creek (Overbrook Neighborhood) sewersheds to inform polices that guide green stormwater infrastructure investments in Philadelphia, with potential for application in other urban areas. We expect our research findings, and the tools we have developed, to help improve the nation's ability to protect its urban watersheds and ecosystems through better understanding of the costs, benefits, and performance of GI technologies.
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