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Stormwater runoff is a problem plaguing cities, but many people don’t know what to do about it. We say understanding is the first step, so let’s start there.

When you wake up to a stormy morning and look out your window, you likely think nothing of it. Rain happens all the time, after all. It’s just what nature does. The coffee, on the other hand, will not make itself.

And that’s about when the average person stops thinking about rain … if they even get that far.

The trouble is, not thinking about it doesn’t make it go away. Cities still deal with hundreds of billions of gallons of precipitation every year from both rain events and snowmelt.

Seriously, hundreds of billions. And where does it go? Right into our streets, sewers and waterways. It’s time to not only answer the question of what is stormwater runoff, exactly, but also to lay plans to manage it more effectively.

Stormwater management is a pressing need in today’s built environments, but it’s important to choose the right one for maximum effect. Here’s how to get started.

We’re just going to come right out and say it: stormwater sucks.

In an unmanaged urban context, at least, it can prove very damaging indeed.

“Increasing development and urbanization of our lands has led to changes in the natural environment that include increases in flooding, degradation of water quality, erosion, and sedimentation of our waterways,” says the University of Virginia’s Facilities Management Department.

Why is this happening? Because our heavily paved-over cities have cut off many of the avenues from sky to water table. Time was, when it rained or snowed, that water found its way to the closest stream or river pretty quickly, or else filtered through soil and other organic substances and joined the aquifer (the saturated area beneath the water table).

Now, that’s no longer possible in urban areas – or at least far more difficult.

Instead, water sheets off city surfaces – brick, stone, cement, asphalt – and eventually into waterways, but only after eroding the environment, spreading disease from sewers, and picking up massive chemicals loads from dirty city surfaces.

Good times.

Kidding. Terrible times. That’s where a good stormwater management system comes in.

Though they’re not the best choice for all rooftops, blue roofs do offer major environmental opportunity of which we should avail ourselves. 

Question: What wears a dirty blue cape, visits Chicago more than a hundred times per year, and doesn’t give a fig about combined sewer overflows?

If you said Captain Stormwater, you are correct. The prize, well – how about being really bummed out? You know, because of the disease and toxins that pour into our streets, the urban runoff that poisons wildlife, or the overloaded city infrastructure that just can’t keep up with the amount of water sheeting off impermeable surfaces every day?

Told you, it’s a bummer.

That’s not to say we can’t do anything about it. Green roofs help solve many of these problems, transforming barren concrete and cement rooftops into vibrant oases that absorb and filter stormwater, lessening its load considerably.

Green roofs represent a significant upfront cost outlay, though, and some people aren’t willing to wait for the ROI that accrues over time. In that case, a blue roof might just do the trick. Let’s tackle what that is, why it’s beneficial, whether it’s the best solution for your rooftop, and what we can expect from blue roofs in future.

Stormwater management is a critical need in our cities and rural areas today, but to make our methods truly effective, we need to understand best practices.

To you, a sudden rainstorm is a nuisance. Your husband has the car today, so you’re walking to the L. You forgot your umbrella. Your presentation is getting wet.

Bummer.

Yet the billions of gallons that rain and snow down on cities like Chicago every year are far more than a personal inconvenience. They take a major toll, overrunning our sewers, sending pollution and disease into waterways, and ruining both metropolitan and rural areas.

The problem is, we tend to think of “saving the environment” as pertaining to the wilds, or at least to wetlands and parks – both inside and outside the city.

In truth, the urban environment is important as well. It’s where humans live (duh), and if we don’t take careful steps to make cities healthy, we’re hurting not only the world, but ourselves.

So how does stormwater come into the picture? Today, we’ll examine exactly what stormwater is and what we can do to manage it more effectively using long-term solutions rather than temporary measures.

In other words, using stormwater management best practices.

Green stormwater infrastructure is a growing need in our world, as cities bloom and rural areas feel their effects. Are you missing out on its benefits?

Stormwater is a huge problem.

When we say huge, we don’t just mean “large” or “sizeable” or any other half-measure word that politicians use.

We mean huge.

It’s a problem to which we must start paying attention, but we have to do it in the right ways … and that means going green.

Stormwater is liquid that results from rain, snow and other forms of precipitation. In an urban environment, we typically use the term “stormwater” in the context of surface water that aggregates on impermeable surfaces. 

Stormwater.

It just sounds kind of scary, right?

I mean, you’ve heard the term. You know it’s a problem. You understand that addressing it is of critical importance.

But unless you work in landscaping or an environmental niche, you may not understand what to do about it. As a homeowner, building manager, investor or institution, you probably feel unsure what your responsibility to the environment should take – and that’s okay.

Let’s talk about the definition of stormwater and what it means for you today.

Rural stormwater management is a critical – and often under-addressed – need in our world today. Anywhere humans live, we need a smart plan for purifying water and funneling it where it needs to go. 

We should definitely celebrate the fact that stormwater management has become a better-known concept in cities across America.

* pause for champagne and party crackers *

However, the focus on cities has had one unintended side effect: In the effort to respond to urban needs, many people have forgotten the importance of rural stormwater management.

Combined sewer overflow events plague many cities that rely on old infrastructure to manage both sanitation and surface runoff. It’s time we made a change.

If you’re like most, avoiding the contents of a toilet is pretty high on your list.

It might disgust you, therefore, to discover that the sewers in many large cities regularly back up and flow into the streets.

While this fact is certainly ripe for some bathroom humor, it’s actually a very serious problem. When heavy rains lead to an abundance of stormwater, some sewers can’t keep up. Current city planning incorporates stormwater management practices to prevent this from happening, but our older urban spaces have yet to hop on board.

it’s time we change that.

While we don’t often stop to think about the magnitude of each rainfall and snowfall, the environment still has to deal with the massive quantities of runoff that result. So what is stormwater management, and why does it matter?

As the US Geological Survey points out, runoff from stormwater is an extremely important part of the world’s ecosystem. It carries water downhill to fill lakes and rivers, wears away at stone and dirt, forms climates and habitats in its wake.

That’s during natural processes, though. In cities, these mechanisms aren’t nearly so healthy. Rainwater pounds away at rooftops, sidewalks, streets and other impermeable surfaces, but can’t get through. It heads to sewers instead, picking up pollution and disease along the way.

Obviously, we need a way to manage all that runoff. If you’re asking “Well, what is stormwater management?” then you’re in the right place. Let’s talk about that.

Think stormwater retention and detention are interchangeable terms? Think again … here’s a brief crash course in the differences between the two. 

If ever two terms were created to confuse, it’s stormwater detention and stormwater retention. I mean, come on … someone was just playing a cruel joke on us.

It’s critical we push past any English language befuddlements, however, because these two terms are extremely important to creating a better, happier ecosystem – both here at home and across the world.

Stormwater, see, is an incredibly problematic fact of urban living. The extremely high percentage of paved-over surfaces in the city – think asphalt, cement and concrete – water doesn’t have anywhere to go once it descends from the sky.

Long story short: It pools in streets and sewers, it picks up pollutants and disease, it transmits them to wildlife and waterways. In short, stormwater sucks and we need to do something about it.

First, though, we need to know what we’re dealing with vis-à-vis solutions. So what exactly are stormwater detention and retention? Let’s clarify both terms, then take a quick look at how you can employ each.