Effectiveness of Stormwater Management Practices in Protecting Stream Channel Stability

Abstract

In October 2008, the National Research Council released the report Urban Stormwater Management in the United States (National Research Council, 2009) which determined that urbanization has ‘‘… degraded water quality and habitat in virtually every urban stream system,” an effect known as the “urban stream syndrome” (Walsh et al., 2005). As porous agricultural and forest lands are cleared of vegetation, compacted, and converted to impermeable pavement and buildings, watershed hydrology is dramatically altered (Hancock et al., 2010; Feld et al., 2011). Changes in stormwater quantity, rates, and timing result in stream channel downcutting and widening, decreases in groundwater recharge and base flows to streams, and the disruption of stream ecosystem dynamics (Nelson and Booth, 2002; Fletcher et al., 2013).