Stormwater management

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To show examples of Low Impact Development (LID) practices in the Richmond region in order to educate builders, planners, and commissioners who want to better understand what these stormwater treatment practices are.

“Low Impact Development (LID) is an innovative stormwater management approach with a basic principle that is modeled after nature: manage rainfall at the source using uniformly distributed decentralized micro-scale controls. LID's goal is to mimic a site's predevelopment hydrology by using design techniques that infiltrate, filter, store, evaporate, and detain runoff close to its source.” (Definition from Low Impact Development Center.) For further descriptions of the terminology go to definitions. For more information on LID, go to Low Impact Development Programs.

Stormwater either enters the ground (absorption) and recharges groundwater, evaporates into the atmosphere, or flows over land to streams, lakes, rivers, and other water features. Increasing suburban and urban development has changed the amount and velocity of stormwater runoff entering streams. Flooding becomes more frequent and stream life (animal and plant) is hurt by added sediment and pollution. Meanwhile, groundwater reserves dwindle.

While earlier construction practices rarely managed the quantity and quality of stormwater running off-site, today local and state programs deal specifically with how stormwater is controlled both community-wide and on a site-by-site basis. For more information about Virginia’s laws regulating stormwater management, go to links to Virginia Stormwater Management legislation and programs. For information on local environmental and stormwater programs in the Richmond region, go to local programs.

The Richmond Region is home to several innovative stormwater management practices. Examples range from a bioretention area for a courthouse built in a field in Charles City County to a green roof on an existing building in downtown Richmond. While there are no examples here of a site fully developed with LID, there are some individual structures and practices. The purpose of this website is to inform the public about their benefits, and provide developers and engineers with ideas and contact information to implement similar projects.

Stormwater management is important in this region because we are in the James River and Chesapeake Bay watersheds. By reducing the amount, speed, and sediments/pollution in stormwater runoff, the effects of development on water quality are lessened.