If you see people trudging around in waterproof boots with paper and pens in hand in ditches and culverts, it is probably the Antioch and LSPA teams measuring those watershed stormwater structures as part of a new project.
LSPA is part of a team that has recently been awarded funding through a NOAA grant to study these stormwater infrastructure conditions in the Sunapee Watershed. The project is estimated to be a two year effort to assess potential risks in the local infrastructure during and after stormwater events.
The team includes LSPA Staffer, Robert Wood, researchers and students from Antioch University and experts on stormwater management from across the country. The goals of the project are to help towns and others avoid costly infrastructure damage and save money by adapting stormwater systems to changing development and precipitation patterns in the region. Additionally, since stormwater has a major impact on water quality, the project results and recommendations will help to protect water quality in the long-term. It is hoped that this project will serve as a national model.
Part of LSPA‘s role in this project is to help gather field data on existing infrastructure conditions. LSPA volunteers, along with teams of grad students and professionals, signed up to do the work of visiting many culvert sites in the watershed. The teams take measurements, make observations, record the data and take photos. The measurements include such parameters as culvert length, width, height (or diameter), type of culvert, slope of culvert, and road/road surface information. There are about 150 known culverts in the area, with team findings of “unknown” structures that are then added to the list.
The results of the study will lead to information that municipalities and other stakeholders can use to prevent losses from storm events. The measurements are combined with such parameters as land use, soil type, slopes, precipitation, sub-watershed and stream information. Increased stormwater runoff is a challenging problem, as evidenced by the damage incurred especially in the past few years from major events in NH.
Date published on web site:
11-02-2009
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