Collaborative Research: Reimagining Urban Watershed Management: A Systems Approach to Stormwater Control and Ecological Rehabilitation

合作研究：重新构想城市流域管理：雨水控制和生态恢复的系统方法

• 批准号: 2206540
• 负责人: Jon Hathaway
• 金额: $ 39.98万
• 依托单位: University of Tennessee Knoxville
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2022
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2022-08-01 至 2025-07-31
• 项目状态: 未结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=2206540&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: Collaborative; Research; Reimagining; Urban; Watershed

It is expected that a greater number of larger and denser cities will manifest more potent and pervasive pressures on stream ecosystems worldwide. Urbanization leads to greater stormwater runoff, which can result in a slate of ecological impairments that collectively have been identified as the “urban stream syndrome” (USS). Stormwater control is thus central to protecting and rehabilitating urban waterways, but stormwater management has largely prioritized objectives motivated by societal concerns, like flood control and protecting infrastructure, over consideration of ecological functions in receiving waters. Consequently, little progress has made towards ‘solving the syndrome’. This project aims to transform how urban runoff is managed by designing and demonstrating a systems approach to upland interventions to rehabilitate in-stream ecological conditions. The expectation is that the work will yield fundamental technological and conceptual advances to realize much-needed next generation stormwater infrastructure, addressing the grand challenge laid out by the National Academy of Engineering to Restore and Improve Urban Infrastructure. The project could substantively improve the condition of surface waters across the US and abroad. According to the US EPA, urban runoff is the probable source of impairment for over 49,000 miles of rivers and streams that have been assessed in the US, a staggering number that illustrates the potential impact of innovative stormwater management solutions. It is the goal of the project to provide the foundation for transforming how urban runoff is managed by creating a new framework for rehabilitating and protecting surface waters. The project will recast stormwater runoff as an environmental flows problem that can be addressed by upgrading traditional stormwater infrastructure into cyber-physical ‘smart stormwater’ systems capable of adaptively meeting ecological and regulatory objectives.Static and decentralized replacement of grey stormwater infrastructure with green alternatives (e.g., bioswales, wet ponds) has not provided corrective remedies of USS. This has led to increasing advocacy for operational shifts towards basin-scale coordination of stormwater interventions and conceptual shifts towards viewing urban stormwater management through the lens of environmental flows. Recent advances in sensors and controls now allow stormwater infrastructure to be operated as a ‘smart’ system for managing how and when runoff is discharged into a receiving stream, affording unprecedented opportunities to (re)establish desired flow regimes based on a set of multiple objectives. In this project, the target is to determine and demonstrate how stormwater systems can be tuned to achieve environmental flows as an objective function to meet ecological and regulatory goals. The project will combine model parameterization and simulations with empirical tests, with the aim of assessing whether achieving environmental flows (1) is possible using a ‘smart stormwater’ approach; (2) alters ecosystem attributes and functioning in urban streams; and if so, (3) alleviates impairments characteristic of USS. This will entail (1) identifying and defining ecologically-informed performance objectives for urban watersheds; (2) using a systems approach to optimize stormwater interventions that leverage controllable outlets and adaptive control algorithms; and (3) empirically demonstrating and evaluating site- and system-level smart stormwater management at two experimental testbeds. The project also will also pursue public outreach through educational partnerships. The project team will continue to work with Tennessee's Knox County Schools to host biannual “Meet the Creek” citizen science events that offer students opportunities to learn about the effects of urbanization on streams and automation of storm water control, as well as collect physical and biological data on in-stream conditions that will support K-12 curricular goals. Additionally, aspects of this study will be integrated into topical courses taught by the investigators at their respective institutions, including a graduate seminar on ecological restoration and engineering courses focusing on modeling and analytics. The project will help advance diversity, equity and inclusion in STEM fields by involving students from underrepresented groups, who will be recruited through organizations like the UTK Engineering Office of Diversity Programs, and will afford excellent opportunities for graduate education and career advancement.This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.

可以预期，在全球溪流生态系统上，更多的较大和密集的城市将表现出更多的潜力和普遍压力。城市化会导致更大的雨水径流，这可能导致一大批生态障碍，这些障碍集体被确定为“城市流综合症”（USS）。因此，雨水的控制对于保护和修复城市水道是至关重要的，但是雨水管理在很大程度上优先考虑了由社会问题（例如洪水控制和保护基础设施）促进的目标，而不是考虑接收水中的生态功能。因此，对“解决综合症”的进展很小。该项目旨在通过设计和展示一种系统干预措施来修复河流生态条件的系统方法来改变城市径流。期望这项工作将产生基本的技术和概念进步，以实现急需的下一代雨水基础设施，以应对美国国家工程学院提出的重大挑战，以恢复和改善城市基础设施。该项目可以实质上改善整个美国和国外的地表水状况。根据美国EPA的说法，城市径流是在美国评估过的49,000英里河流和溪流的损害来源，这是一个惊人的数字，它说明了创新的雨水管理解决方案的潜在影响。该项目的目标是通过创建一个新的恢复和保护地表水的框架来改变城市径流的基础。 The project will recast stormwater runoff as an environmental flows problem that can be addressed by upgrading traditional stormwater infrastructure into cyber-physical ‘smart stormwater’ systems capable of adaptively meeting ecological and regulatory objectives.Static and decentralized replacement of grey stormwater infrastructure with green alternatives (e.g., bioswales, wet ponds) has not provided corrective remedies of USS.这导致倡导朝向雨水干预措施的盆地规模协调的运营转变和概念上的转变，并通过环境流的视角向城市雨水管理进行了转变。现在，传感器和控件的最新进展允许雨水基础设施作为一种“智能”系统操作，用于管理如何以及何时将径流排放到接收流中，从而为（重新）建立基于一组多个目标的前所未有的机会。在该项目中，目标是确定并证明如何调整雨水系统以实现环境流作为目标功能，以实现生态和监管目标。该项目将使用“智能雨水”方法来评估实现环境流（1）的目的，将模型参数化和模拟与经验测试相结合； （2）改变城市流中的生态系统属性和功能；如果是这样，（3）减轻了US的损害。这将需要（1）确定和定义城市流域的生态知名度绩效目标； （2）使用系统方法来优化利用受控插座和自适应控制算法的雨水干预措施； （3）在两个实验测试床上进行经验证明和评估现场和系统级智能雨水管理。该项目还将通过教育合作伙伴关系进行公共宣传。项目团队将继续与田纳西州的诺克斯县学校合作，主持双年展的“遇见小溪”公民科学活动，这些活动为学生提供了机会，可以了解城市化对溪流和雨水控制自动化的影响，并收集有关将支持K-12现有目标的播放条件的物理和生物学数据。此外，这项研究的各个方面将集成到各自机构的研究人员教授的局部课程中，包括针对建模和分析的生态恢复和工程课程的研究生精神启发。该项目将通过使代表性不足的团体的学生参与到STEM领域的多样性，公平性和包容性，他们将通过诸如UTK多样性计划的UTK工程办公室等组织进行招聘，并为研究生教育和职业发展提供了极好的机会。该奖项反映了NSF的法定任务，并通过评估智力效果来表现出对基金会的评估，并受到了评估的评估和广泛的范围。