Green Stormwater Infrastructure: Solving Buried Problems at the Surface

Deferred maintenance and an increase in significant rain events are overwhelming aging stormwater systems. To keep streams clean, regulatory requirements are encouraging communities to invest in robust, sustainable and capital-intensive systems.

What to Do With Too Much Water

Within the last couple of years, damage caused by hurricanes, wildfires, floods and other severe weather events in the U.S. is in the billions of dollars, and more extreme weather is yet to come.

Flooding and Permitting Needs Prompt Stormwater Management Transformation

Significant flooding impelled the City of Grandview, Missouri, to update its 30-year-old stormwater master plan. The scope then increased with a letter of warning citing permitting noncompliance. For timely solutions, the city called in reinforcements to tackle both tasks.

Creating Sustainable Environments With Green Stormwater Infrastructure

With the ability to implement green stormwater infrastructure into the design, a local project is giving the Unified Government of Wyandotte County and Kansas City, Kansas (UG), an opportunity to put a plan into action that helps meet EPA goals of the Clean Water Act.

Resilient Stormwater Management Begins With the Watershed, Not the Project

Capture, control and convey — for decades, stormwater management has been focused on these basic goals. But a century of temporarily solving the same issues without addressing the bigger picture has demonstrated the need to think differently about stormwater solutions.

Smart Stormwater Components Address Multiple Needs With One Solution

The City of Kansas City, Missouri, had been experiencing frequent combined sewer overflows. In order to meet federal clean water requirements, the Water Services Department’s Smart Sewer Program needed a solution that would reduce overflows while utilizing green infrastructure components.

Green Stormwater Infrastructure
The City of Kansas City, Missouri

Using green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) technologies, Kansas City is managing stormwater by mimicking natural processes that slow and absorb runoff, reducing the need for costly, conventional improvements to the underground stormwater system. As a community, the city is realizing numerous benefits associated with viewing stormwater as a resource rather than a waste.

Controlling the Stormwater

Out-of-sight, out-of-mind is an outdated — and potentially dangerous — tactic to take with stormwater. When captured and cleaned, hundreds of millions of gallons of stormwater can be used to improve communities while protecting streams and water quality in the process.

Testing and Monitoring: Optimal Green Infrastructure

Long-range testing and monitoring provide important information on the movement of water in and through green infrastructure and identify retrofits needed for current or future designs.

Building Sustainable, Resilient and Greener Cities

The world’s population is growing, and drastic climate changes are happening in urban and rural areas alike. To safeguard the environment and provide better living conditions, municipalities and organizations should explore green infrastructure solutions.