CURRENT STUDENTS WORKING ON THIS PROJECT
- Carolyn Voter, graduate student
- Jared Stieve, undergraduate student
RESEARCH TOPICS
- Urban hydrology
- Urban soil compaction
- Green infrastructure
- Residential development
RESEARCH METHODS
- High Performance/High Throughput Computing
- Fieldwork (soil sampling, runoff measurements)
- Laboratory Work (soil hydraulic characteristics)
RESEARCH DESCRIPTION
The focus of this project is on how management and development on residential parcels affect urban hydrology and what opportunities exist to lower that impact.
If you walk through any neighborhood, you’ll see differences in how residential parcels are developed. Some have downspouts that spill to the yard, others drain down the driveway and directly to the storm sewer network. Some have native landscaping, others have turfgrass. Some are just like their neighbors, others stand alone in their adoption of rain gardens and other low-impact practices.
What does this mean for hydrologic fluxes – surface runoff, deep drainage, and evapotranspiration – in our cities? How does the “optimal” low-impact intervention vary depending on hyper-local conditions? We run modeling sensitivity studies and collect field data from residential neighborhoods in Milwaukee to explore these types of questions.
FORMER STUDENTS WORKING ON THIS PROJECT
- Martin Calderon, undergraduate student
- Alex Bauch, undergraduate student
- Jeff Miller, MS student
LINKS TO NEWS STORIES AND BLOG POSTS
Tool Development
A data tool for homeowners to make rain gardens more effective
A Little from a Lot
Research is looking at the ways urban and suburban lot design choices affect a water budget
FUNDING
UW Sea Grant Institute
LTER-NTL
UW Water Resource Institute (WR12R002)