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.

预计更多更大、更密集的城市将对世界各地的河流生态系统表现出更强大和普遍的压力。城市化导致更大的雨水径流，这可能导致一系列生态破坏，这些破坏统称为“城市河流综合症”(USS)。因此，雨水控制是保护和恢复城市水道的核心，但雨水管理在很大程度上优先考虑防洪和保护基础设施等社会关切的目标，而不是考虑受水的生态功能。因此，在“解决综合症”方面进展甚微。该项目旨在改变城市径流的管理方式，设计和展示一种系统的方法，对旱地进行干预，以恢复河流中的生态条件。人们的期望是，这项工作将产生根本性的技术和概念进步，以实现亟需的下一代雨水基础设施，解决美国国家工程院提出的恢复和改善城市基础设施的重大挑战。该项目可以实质性地改善美国和海外的地表水状况。根据美国环保署的数据，在美国，超过49,000英里的河流和小溪可能会受到城市径流的破坏，这个惊人的数字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恢复和保护地表水的新框架，为改变城市径流管理方式提供基础。该项目将把雨水径流重塑为一个环境流动问题，可以通过将传统的雨水基础设施升级为能够自适应地满足生态和监管目标的网络物理“智能雨水”系统来解决。静态和分散地将灰色雨水基础设施替换为绿色替代方案(例如，生物沟、湿池塘)并没有为USS提供纠正措施。这导致越来越多地倡导业务转向流域范围的雨水干预协调，以及从环境流动的角度看待城市雨水管理的观念转变。最近在传感器和控制方面的进步使雨水基础设施可以作为一个“智能”系统来运行，用于管理径流如何以及何时排入接收溪流，这为基于一组多目标(重新)建立所需的流态提供了前所未有的机会。在这个项目中，目标是确定和演示如何调整雨水系统以实现环境流量，作为满足生态和监管目标的目标功能。该项目将把模型参数化和模拟与经验测试结合起来，目的是评估是否有可能实现环境流量：(1)使用“智能雨水”方法；(2)改变城市河流的生态系统属性和功能；以及(3)如果是的话，(3)减轻USS特有的损害。这将需要：(1)确定和确定城市分水岭的生态绩效目标；(2)使用系统方法来优化利用可控出口和自适应控制算法的雨水干预措施；(3)在两个实验试验台上经验地演示和评估现场和系统级的智能雨水管理。该项目还将通过教育伙伴关系进行公众宣传。项目团队将继续与田纳西州的诺克斯县学校合作，举办一年两次的“遇见小溪”公民科学活动，为学生提供机会，了解城市化对溪流的影响和雨水控制的自动化，并收集有关溪流条件的物理和生物数据，以支持K-12课程目标。此外，这项研究的各个方面将纳入研究人员在各自机构教授的专题课程，包括生态恢复研究生研讨会和侧重于建模和分析的工程学课程。该项目将通过吸纳来自代表性不足群体的学生，帮助促进STEM领域的多样性、公平性和包容性，这些学生将通过UTK多样性工程办公室等组织招募，并将为研究生教育和职业发展提供极好的机会。该奖项反映了NSF的法定使命，并通过使用基金会的智力优势和更广泛的影响审查标准进行评估，被认为值得支持。