Urban and suburban stormwater management by natural treatment systems (NTS), including planted biofilters and bioswales, are increasingly-used vehicles for intercepting and controlling rainfall runoff at sub-watershed scales. Large runoff volumes over short time periods can promote local flooding which NTS can diminish by decelerating surface flow rates and allowing for infiltration into subsurface soils. NTS are also often promoted as vehicles for pollutant removal, such that infiltrated runoff to shallow groundwater or downstream surface waters are less impacted by runoff chemistry as shaped by hardscape accumulations, landscape fertilizers and pesticides, and atmospheric deposition. Indeed, via NTS design and management strategies, there is a great potential for NTS to achieve flow and pollutant treatment, in addition to other (e.g. aesthetic, educational, and broadly ecosystem service-related) goals. Standardized guidance to the NTS professional design and practitioner management sectors would ideally address best practices to achieve these promised NTS outcomes. We ask: what are the design and management criteria, with specifications, for NTS in publicly-available guidance documents, and how do these compare to stated NTS goals? To address, we gather and critically evaluate U.S.-based NTS guidance documents, many from throughout California, and score design and management recommendations against both stated and expected NTS performance categories. Generally, we report a mis-match between promise and practice, in that NTS design and maintenance criteria are not specific to goals beyond flow management. Our study provides a basis for envisioning alignment between NTS practice and promise, one that we suggest can be achieved by increasing the scientific understanding and basis of NTS design and management.

Practice versus promise: An assessment of design and maintenance guidance relative to goals for stormwater natural treatment systems

2019 Fall National Meeting

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