Urban development puts strain on the environment in numerous ways. Flora and fauna are pushed off the land, but more immediate to human health, the increase in impervious cover can lead to greater risks of flooding and polluted waters. The City of Austin made a commitment to the environment and managing the city’s hydrology in its 2012 Imagine Austin Comprehensive Plan. The city’s Watershed Protection Department (WPD) is working to fulfill the city’s promise by writing regulation to be included in CodeNEXT, the rewrite of the City’s land development code. The aim of this “beneficial use” regulation is to infiltrate, reuse or evapotranspire rainwater that falls on highly impervious multi-family and commercial sites within the city limits. I was hired by the WPD to conduct feasibility studies of their regulation and began by familiarizing myself with Austin’s Environmental Criteria Manual (ECM) and the history behind the proposed regulation. I first investigate the extent green stormwater control measures (GSCMs) laid out in the ECM can be implemented on existing sites in the city of varying degrees of impermeability selected by WPD staff. Starting from city archived site plans and shapefiles, I place GSCMs spatially in ArcGIS and use the ECM to determine whether the beneficial use volume threshold set by the city could be met for each site. Finally, I discuss how the findings of my study led to a simplification of the proposed regulation.

This paper serves as a "kicking-the-tires" analysis of low impact developments as a method of stormwater management. Specifically, this paper examines the feasibility, benefit, and current practice of low impact developments in Austin, Texas. Merits, strengths, and weakness are comparatively determined primarily on the basis of the impact and efficiency of design, particularly relating to ability to handle water volume and potential to improve water quality. By examining case studies and "applied" examples the potential of low impact development application is considered for the expected, potential, and/or alleged benefits of low impact implementation.

Selected papers from the 2011 Low Impact Development Conference, held in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, September 25-28, 2011. Sponsored by the Low Impact Development Committee of the Urban Water Resources Research Council of the Environmental and Water Resources Institute of ASCE As federal, state, and local governments realize that traditional approaches to stormwater management are not achieving the desired environmental protection goals, they are increasingly adopting low impact development (LID) technology as the preferred approach to stormwater management in land development and redevelopment. Low Impact Development Technology: Design Methods and Case Studies contains 22 papers that address a wide range of LID design applications and includes a number of practical case studies. Topics include: rain gardens and bioretention systems; green streets and hardscapes; green roofs; and watershed restoration. A companion volume, Low Impact Development Technology: Implementation and Economics, is also available. Both collections will be of interest to engineers, land planners, and government officials working on stormwater management and land use policy.

The rapid conversion of land to urban and suburban areas has profoundly altered how water flows during and following storm events, putting higher volumes of water and more pollutants into the nation's rivers, lakes, and estuaries. These changes have degraded water quality and habitat in virtually every urban stream system. The Clean Water Act regulatory framework for addressing sewage and industrial wastes is not well suited to the more difficult problem of stormwater discharges. This book calls for an entirely new permitting structure that would put authority and accountability for stormwater discharges at the municipal level. A number of additional actions, such as conserving natural areas, reducing hard surface cover (e.g., roads and parking lots), and retrofitting urban areas with features that hold and treat stormwater, are recommended.