Stormwater Management Research

Ongoing Research

In collaboration with the US Geological Survey Northeast Climate Adaptation Science Center, we are launching a project on “Designing Climate-Resilient Stormwater Management in Northeastern US Cities to Support Stream Ecosystems.” This project builds on my previously funded work in that takes an interdisciplinary approach that integrates social science, engineering, hydrology, and water quality. We’ll start by asking stormwater managers in the region what climate adaptation strategies they’ve adopted, what’s in their plans, and what they need to know more about. We’ll use those answers to inform SWMM modeling of key adaptation strategies in current and future climates for select cities in the region, and share the results back with managers so they can see exactly how well different strategies will work in their city. Simultaneously, we’ll also be aggregating existing data on suspended sediment and phosphorus in urban streams (and collecting some new data in the Burlington area). We’ll pull those data together with our flow simulations to predict how sediment and phosphorus loads will change with climate and the adoption of the adaptation strategies, so we can share those key water quality metrics with the managers as well. All along we’ll be listening carefully to what our local and regional partners tell us they need and doing the best we can to make sure that the science we do is decision-relevant at the local level. Jill Sarazen is co-PI on the research, and we will be recruiting a post-doc in early 2025 to lead the SWMM modeling efforts.

Mill Creek, near Cleveland, Ohio is intensely urbanized. How well does stormwater management mitigate the hydrologic and water quality effects of the landscape's development?
Mill Creek, near Cleveland, Ohio is intensely urbanized. How well does stormwater management mitigate the hydrologic and water quality effects of the landscape’s development?

Recent Projects

Watershed scale: From 2017-2023, I was the principal investigator of a National Science Foundation-funded grant to study how stormwater decision making translates to environmental outcomes at the watershed scale. I’m collaborating with Aditi Bhaskar (University of Colorado), Kelly Turner (UCLA), and Dave Costello (Kent State University) on the project we’ve nicknamed STORMS, for STream Outcomes Resulting from Management of Stormwater. You can read more about the project’s design and goals here. We worked in Cleveland and Denver using approaches drawn from social sciences, engineering, geology, and biology to develop an integrative understanding of urban watershed function.

Reviews: In 2017, we synthesized and reviewed 100 studies reporting catchment scale effects of stormwater management networks to understand the state of the science. This work was followed by a meta-analysis of modeling studies in 2020.

Site scale: With funding from Cleveland Metroparks and Kent State University, our research group explored the effectiveness of different types of green infrastructure on mitigating stormwater flows and improving water quality at the site scale. Multiple students collected and analyzed five years of water quantity and quality data for two bioretention cells, the green roof, and a constructed wetland at the Cleveland Metroparks Watershed Stewardship Center, in collaboration with Lauren Kinsman-Costello‘s lab. With Dave Costello and his students, we also investigated metal accumulation in bioretention cell soils.

Street scale: Bioretention cells capturing street runoff and rain gardens and rain barrels collecting roof runoff have been installed on two residential streets in the City of Parma’s West Creek watershed. Using a paired watershed approach, graduate student Kimm Jarden examined the effectievness of this retrofit in reducing peak flows and total stormflow volumes. You can read about the results of her work in a paper in Hydrological Processes, or the accompanying press release. Post-doc Pedro Avellaneda built on the experimental data to develop a hydrological model of one of the streets and assess which parts of the project generated the largest benefits. We also explored the social science dimensions of this project in a paper with Kelly Turner (UCLA).

Stormwater wetland, sodded slope, and new houses
Stormwater wetland in suburban Charlotte, NC.

Downstream effects in headwater catchments: Funded by NSF’s Environmental Sustainability program from 2010-2015, Anne was part of an interdisciplinary team investigating the influence of stormwater management structures on ecological function in urban streams. This project was in collaboration with Sara McMillan at Purdue, Sandra Clinton at UNC Charlotte, and Christina (Naomi) Tague at UC Santa Barbara. We used a combination of monitoring and modeling to understand the cumulative, downstream effects of stormwater control structures on urban stream hydrology, biogeochemistry, and ecology on urban headwater streams.