James Houle Program Manager UNH Stormwater Center
James HouleProgram Manager
UNH Stormwater Center
Context
• Climate Mitigation is all about carbon (reducing emissions)
• Climate Adaptation is all about water
General Outline
• Problem: There are changing patterns and there need to be new innovations for municipal infrastructure built with more useful and relevant data.
• Solutions: Widespread application of GI incorporating storage and flexible conveyance in the landscape
• Benefits: improve local community resilience, or the ability of a community to bounce back quickly from climate impacts
Climate Solutions New England (CSNE), 2014
Extreme Events Increasing
% increase from 1958‐2012 in the amount of precipitation from extreme rain events (heaviest 1% of all daily events from 1958‐2012
Source: Kenneth Kunkel, Cooperative Institute for Climate and Satelites, Noreth Carolina Sate and NOAA NCDC
• NOAA Rainfall data last updated in 1963
• Research examining impacts including the last 50 yrs show that 28‐60% increase rainfall depths (Guo 2006)
• infrastructure design today relies on outdated data
Infrastructure will be increasingly compromised by climate‐related hazards, including sea level rise, coastal flooding, and intense precipitation events.
Source: Antioch University of New England, 2009
Not if…. When…
Source:Shaleen Jain, UMaine Civil & Environmental Engineering & Climate Change Institute (2012)
Three things you can do now
1.) Use up‐to‐date design standards2.) Include multiple no‐risk improvements to all designs3.) Identify hotspots and implement preventative GI pilot projects
Improved Data
TP‐40 (1961)Northeast Regional Climate Center (NRCC, 2010)
Percent Difference
Event in yrs2 3.1 3.3 5%10 4.5 4.9 8%25 5.5 6.2 11%50 6.0 7.4 19%100 6.8 8.8 23%
Inches per 24 hrs
http://precip.eas.cornell.edu/
up‐to‐date code
http://www.southeastwatershedalliance.org/Final_SWA_SWStandards_Dec_2012.pdf
2013 Model Regulations$0 Cost Controls
http://www.southeastwatershedalliance.org/Final_SWA_SWStandards_Dec_2012.pdf
TSS (lbs) TP (lbs) TN (lbs)10‐years 1,471,440 4,470 122,40025‐years 3,678,600 11,175 122,400
Municipalities are facing decisions about the construction or reconstruction of water resource infrastructure today that will have a profound impact on the size, scope, cost of drainage, and relative risk years into the future.
15
Highest priority culvert was replaced with a bridge
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Questions?