EPA Releases Stormwater Management Tool

The Climate Adjustment Tool allows engineers and planners to evaluate the performance of water infrastructure while considering future climate change projections.

The EPA has launched the Climate Adjustment Tool for its Stormwater Management Model, an online stormwater simulation model.

The Climate Adjustment Tool allows engineers and planners to evaluate the performance of water infrastructure while considering future climate change projections, such as more frequent high-intensity storms and changes in evaporation rates of seasonal precipitation, to determine the benefits of resiliency decisions to reduce economic burden and protect communities.

The new tool will enable users to add climate projections based on the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s climate change scenarios to existing simulations to determine the quality of water traveling through traditional infrastructure: a system of gutters, storm drains, pipes, channels, collection tanks and storage devices. The tool also has the ability to model the performance of green infrastructure practices, including permeable pavement, rain gardens and green roofs.

It helps engineers and planners accurately represent any combination of traditional and green infrastructure practices within an area to determine their effectiveness in managing stormwater and combined sewer overflows in their community.

The EPA says the Climate Adjustment Tool, in addition to other tools in President Obama’s Climate Action Plan Virtual Climate Resilience Toolkit, can help users make planning, analysis and design decisions that will guard against the impacts of climate change.

To assist planners and environmental managers the EPA has developed additional tools, including:

The EPA’s Stormwater Calculator: a tool that can be used by homeowners, landscapers, and developers to estimate the amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff on a specific site based on local soil conditions, land cover, historic rainfall records, and climate change scenarios.

The EPA’s Climate Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool (CREAT): a tool that assists drinking water and wastewater utility owners and operators understand potential climate change threats and assess the related risks.

 

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