Alternate: Regional, Nature-based Solutions to Stormwater Management

Nature-based solutions offer a breakthough in addressing regional and local stormwater needs. The efficacy of these solutions, though recent in adaptation, are now well documented. The benefits are global across the stormwater and water resource spectrum. Across the United States as well as globally, larger regional projects with multi-disciplinary nature-based components are gaining acceptance and popularity in lieu of traditional project by project stormwater management or as a compliment to green infrastructure programs. The White House and National Climate Task Force recently developed and published a framework to accelerate nature-based solutions in November 2022. Clients across the US are actively developing these types of solutions for flooding, erosion, water quality, ecological uplift and habitat restoration, wetland mitigation and for compliance with impaired waterbody criteria. The strength of regional nature-based solutions is that a single project can provide multiple benefits rather than a single benefit such as flood reduction or stormwater capture that traditional approaches focus upon. This also opens up such projects to additional grant and partner funding as these projects may include resiliency, sustainability, mitigation or ecological benefits as well as the ability to address the needs of multiple projects and stakeholders rather than just one. In aggregate, these projects can be more cost-effective than traditional approaches. The Florida Department of Transportation (FDOT) completed a regional project in which an area of poor water quality in a stagnant bay was addressed with bridge cuts in a causeway to improve circulation and water quality and set up a water quality credit bank to address any project that drained to the bay that could be used instead of constructing traditional stormwater ponds and linear stormwater management. An internal FDOT audit concluded the project saved $100 Million over traditional construction and maintenance heavy approaches as well as resulting in much better receiving waterbody quality. In addition, nature-based solutions have a much lower carbon footprint than traditional approaches. In many cases they act as a carbon sink rather than a carbon producer. Based on the success and documented results of several nature-based solutions as well as non-traditional approaches to stormwater management in Florida that have run gamut from wetland restoration for ecological and floodplain mitigation as well as stormwater quality, utilizing stormwater for reclaimed water reuse, septic tank removal in impaired springsheds, tidal circulation improvement to address receiving water quality to seagrass restoration and ecological habitat uplift, FDOT developed a statewide manual to encourage nature-based, innovative stormwater solutions. One of the reasons traditional project-by-project stormwater solutions remain a strong option is the efficiency of a single stakeholder and project as well as a predictable design framework. To address these issues, the FDOT identified several strategies to improve adoption and success of multidisciplinary, multi-benefit nature-based and innovative stormwater solutions. These include: -Early identification of opportunities in planning stage -Early stakeholder engagement -Program wide approach so multiple projects can be tied to a regional solution\ -Early permit agency engagement to achieve buy in on novel stormwater management approaches -Exploration of grant and stakeholder funding -Development of a GIS-database to identify specific watershed issues and opportunities -Early identification of skillsets outside traditional stormwater approaches Regional nature-based approaches are likely to continue to increase. In addition to stormwater, they apply to water supply and infrastructure, environmental mitigation and restoration and coastal approaches such as living shorelines as opposed to traditional hardscape. It is often much easier to obtain public and environmental support and buy in for a regional stormwater facility that restores a natural hydrologic system, includes park or eco-tourism elements and serves multiple highways, developments or projects within a watershed than it would be for a traditional project and approach. As such, these projects are a win-win for a broad spectrum of clients and stakeholders. In addition, nature-based approaches are able to better accommodate and scale with climate change and hence are more sustainable and resilient.