UNH Stormwater Center Researchers Available to Discuss Spring Flooding

April 28, 2008

DURHAM, N.H. -- Experts from the UNH Stormwater Center are available to discuss the impact of stormwater management on spring floods. Center director Robert Roseen (robert.roseen@unh.edu; 603-862-4024), lead scientist Tom Ballestero (tom.ballestero@unh.edu; 603-862-1405) and outreach program manager James Houle (james.houle@unh.edu; 603-767-7091) can all comment on the impact of development and stormwater management on flooding.

Warmer temperatures and spring rains raise water levels — as well as concerns that New England communities will once again contend with dangerous floods this spring. While increasingly severe and frequent storms have contributed to the high incidence of flooding in recent years, development and traditional approaches to managing stormwater runoff are also factors, according to Roseen.

"In a way, we have engineered a landscape that encourages flooding," he says. "Development has created more impervious surfaces—roads, parking lots, and buildings—that prevents rain from soaking into groundwater supplies. Rainfall that should be a resource has become an expensive, dangerous nuisance."

Traditional ways of managing runoff, such as the "paving and ponding" commonly seen in parking lots and the grassy ditches along roads and highways, often are not up to the challenge of managing the increased runoff or treating the pollution it carries. According to Ballestero, these traditional methods also poorly mimic water flow and water quality of natural systems.

"We use these systems because they are familiar and they have the historic blessing of federal and state regulatory agencies," says Roseen. "Our research has found that Low Impact Development (LID) approaches to managing stormwater, such as porous pavement and rain gardens, can make a dramatic difference in reducing runoff volume and treating stormwater quality. Research and engineering could improve LID performance, but as they stand now, these systems are a vast improvement over conventional approaches."

The University of New Hampshire Stormwater Center is dedicated to the protection of water resources through stormwater management. It is supported by the Cooperative Institute for Coastal and Estuarine Environmental Technology (CICEET), a partnership of UNH and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. For more information, go to http://www.unh.edu/erg/cstev/.