Report
Zi, T.; Whipple, A.; Kauhanen, P.; Spotswood, E.; Grenier, L.; Grossinger, R.; Askevold, R. 2021. Trees and Hydrology in Urban Landscapes. SFEI Contribution No. 1034. San Francisco Estuary Institute: Richmond, CA.
Effective implementation of urban greening strategies is needed to address legacies of landscape change and environmental degradation, ongoing development pressures, and the urgency of the climate crisis. With limited space and resources, these challenges will not be met through single-issue or individual-sector management and planning. Increasingly, local governments, regulatory agencies, and other urban planning organizations in the San Francisco Bay Area are expanding upon the holistic, portfolio-based, and multi-benefit approaches.
This effort, presented in the Trees and Hydrology in Urban Landscapes report, seeks to build links between stormwater management and urban ecological improvements by evaluating how complementary urban greening activities, including green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) and urban tree canopy, can be integrated and improved to reduce runoff and contaminant loads in stormwater systems. This work expands the capacity for evaluating engineered GSI and non-engineered urban greening within a modeling and analysis framework, with a primary focus on evaluating the hydrologic benefit of urban trees. Insights can inform stormwater management policy and planning.
Journal Article
Wu, J.; Kauhanen, P.; Hunt, J. A.; Senn, D.; Hale, T.; McKee, L. J. . 2019. Optimal Selection and Placement of Green Infrastructure in Urban Watersheds for PCB Control. Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment 5 (2) . SFEI Contribution No. 729.
Optimal Selection and Placement of Green Infrastructure in Urban Watersheds for PCB Control.
San Francisco Bay and its watersheds are polluted by legacy polychlorinated biphenyls (PCBs), resulting in the establishment of a total maximum daily load (TDML) that requires a 90% PCB load reduction from municipal stormwater. Green infrastructure (GI) is a multibenefit solution for stormwater management, potentially addressing the TMDL objectives, but planning and implementing GI cost-effectively to achieve management goals remains a challenge and requires an integrated watershed approach. This study used the nondominated sorting genetic algorithm (NSGA-II) coupled with the Stormwater Management Model (SWMM) to find near-optimal combinations of GIs that maximize PCB load reduction and minimize total relative cost at a watershed scale. The selection and placement of three locally favored GI types (bioretention, infiltration trench, and permeable pavement) were analyzed based on their cost and effectiveness. The results show that between optimal solutions and nonoptimal solutions, the effectiveness in load reduction could vary as much as 30% and the difference in total relative cost could be well over $100 million. Sensitivity analysis of both GI costs and sizing criteria suggest that the assumptions made regarding these parameters greatly influenced the optimal solutions.
City Engagements
City of Sunnyvale
Wu, J., Kauhanen, P., Hunt, J.A., and McKee, L.J., 2018. Green Infrastructure Planning for the City of Sunnyvale with Greenplan-IT. A joint technical report of the Environment Informatics Program and the Clean Water Program. Contribution No. 881. San Francisco Estuary Institute, Richmond, California. https://www.sfei.org/
City of Richmond
Wu, J., Kauhanen, P., Hunt, J.A., and McKee, L.J., 2018. Green Infrastructure Planning for the City of Richmond with Greenplan-IT. A joint technical report of the Environment Informatics Program and the Clean Water Program. Contribution No. 883. San Francisco Estuary Institute, Richmond, California. https://www.sfei.org/
City of Oakland
Wu, J., Kauhanen, P., Hunt, J.A., and McKee, L.J., 2018. Green Infrastructure Planning for the City of Oakland with Greenplan-IT. A joint technical report of the Environment Informatics Program and the Clean Water Program. Contribution No. 884. San Francisco Estuary Institute, Richmond, California. https://www.sfei.org/
North Richmond
Wu, J., Kauhanen, P., Hunt, J.A., and McKee, L.J., 2018. Green Infrastructure Planning for North Richmond Pump Station Watershed with Greenplan-IT. A joint technical report of the Environment Informatics Program and the Clean Water Program. Contribution No. 882. San Francisco Estuary Institute, Richmond, California. https://www.sfei.org/
East Bay Corridor
Kauhanen, P., Wu, J., Hunt, J.A., and McKee, L.J., 2018. Green Plan-IT Application Report for the East Bay Corridors Initiative. A joint technical report of the Environment Informatics Program and the Clean Water Program. Contribution No. 887. San Francisco Estuary Institute, Richmond, California. https://www.sfei.org/