Publication Date
2005
Committee Members
Mark Lindhult, Chair - Paul Barten, Member
Abstract
The design of stormwater management systems is currently undergoing scrutiny and revision. This has been a long ongoing process that began to take shape in the late 1980s following the adoption of new federal regulations controlling discharge of pollutants into water bodies, rivers and streams. It became apparent after these regulations began to have an affect that other sources of pollution existed that were less easily pin pointed to a single source. Researchers and engineers began looking at stormwater as a culprit. This corresponded with revisions to the understanding of ecology as well as deeper richer understanding of the natural sciences especially the role with which humans play to these systems. The result induced some to associate not just the contaminants picked up by stormwater to be a major cause of urban stream degradation but also the way in which the landscape was being transformed by urban development and the conventional ways that this development accounted for stormwater.