Total Stormwater Resolution via Multiple Scale Research and Integration

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Urban stormwater is a major source of flood water and pollutants in Canadian waterways. Low Impact Development options (LIDs) are popular urban stormwater management technologies that mimic a natural surface hydrologically and environmentally to reduce or eliminate pollutant loads such as total suspended solids, nutrients, organic matter, heavy metals, hydrocarbons (oil and grease) and harmful bacteria. They also reduce peak flowrates and delay flow volumes by lengthening retention times. LIDs can provide zero stormwater impact to the environment and potentially turn stormwater into a beneficial resource. However, currently LIDs are implemented in an ad hoc manner due to a complete lack of information on how they physically function. Therefore, their performance cannot be predicted and planning cannot be conducted. This lack of information is partly due to the methodology employed to study the efficacy of LIDs, which is usually in a laboratory setting and performance is assessed based and comparing what goes out to what comes into the LID. These approaches do not provide information on what is actually happening in the LID to treat the water.