Innovative Approaches for Urban Watershed Wet-Weather Flow Management and Control: Results of the International State-of-the-Technology Workshops

摘要

The "Innovative Approaches for Urban Watershed Wet-Weather Flow Management and Control: State of the Technology" project objective is to investigate and document a range of innovative technology and management strategies that are emerging outside the normal realm of business within the continental United States, for dealing with urban watershed management control and failing infrastructure. The intent is to establish areas where external information can benefit U.S. EPA research. This includes gaining an understanding on developing priorities, research breakthroughs in other countries, potential overlaps or duplications, and common needs across locations. Specific technologies and topics that can be implemented or researched for implementation in the U.S. are targeted outcomes. The approach used in this work has been to i) build on earlier U.S. EPA Office of Research and Development Advanced Topics research (which among other things evaluated emerging needs with a focus on CSOs), ii) complete a literature review to establish focus and roadmap assemble communities from outside the US, and iii) conduct workshops to enable focused review that is beyond day to day preoccupations. Workshops were held in Edinburgh, Scotland and Lyon, France in September and November of 2008, respectively, with a total attendance of 89 international experts. The goal of this project is to identify innovative strategies for managing the effects of wet weather flow control and failing infrastructure in an urban setting. Investigations of wet weather flow treatment approaches through source control (and treatment) at the source make up the setting of this project. Innovative systems that treat stormwater as a beneficial resource through reclamation and reuse are also explored. This effort will focus on practices and technologies that can be implemented at the urban watershed management and infrastructure interface to combine cost effective, integrated solutions. The result is a document containing urban watershed wet-weather flow management and control approaches from a national and international perspective. Specific tasks include a global information search to identify wet weather flow management approaches that represent the current state of the technology. This search is documented in a white paper that has been subjected to review by an international representation of experts to provide comment and feedback on the state-of-the-technology. This document will then provide information towards guidance with a targeted user community of regulators, academics, consultants, and municipalities in order to provide state of the science assessment and recommendations of water, wastewater, and stormwater management and treatment strategies. This document reports the findings of the international workshop participants providing conclusions and recommendations to guide future research, development, and demonstration initiatives. The next challenge is to shift from very broad considerations that the collective experts developed and define a more focused set of actionable technologies and advances. The outcomes will be documented and presented to the participants to encourage thoughtful discussion of the needs and direction of our evolving water and wastewater management community.