Where Does Stormwater Go?

👷Interested in videos on flooding? Subscribe to follow along! practical.engineering/email-list ▶️ Get CuriosityStream AND Nebula for 26% off! curiositystream.com/PracticalEngineering ▶

I think we all owe this guy a huge round of applause for making engineering fun and interesting for everyone and not just the mathematically or technically inclined.

post10 will save us all.

Probably one of my favorite ever "driving into a flooded road" was during Hurricane Ike in Houston. The local news channel was showing various traffic cameras of flooded intersections and caught someone in a big lifted pickup truck just driving straight into deep water. He saw some people "walking" in knee deep water and thought he could go through that. Welp, turns out they were standing on top of a bus.

Stormwater goes where IT wants it to go.

"Humans are notoriously bad at assessing risk" understatement of entire human history right there...

In the Netherlands some parks are made deeper than their surroundings so that they can absorb the water during heavy rand and a possible flood of North-Holland. A good example is 'het park van Luna' in Heerhugowaard.

Pov: its late at night, you are half asleep and now your watching a 2 year old video about storm water instead of going to bed

In my area, I see a lot of retention ponds, particularly in areas with newly constructed homes and shopping centers, to prevent run off or excess water flowing into the storm water systems. The problems is that during the summer time, it leads to a stagnant area of dirty water that becomes a natural breeding ground for mosquitoes.

LID and green stormwater management really is the way to go. In Chicago the TARP system (giant network of tunnels and reservoirs) is turning out to be inadequate. Even though it has a capacity of 10-13 billion gallons. Urban stormwater runoff is just too large to feasibly handle with detention systems. In Philadelphia they have a massive green infrastructure initiative that has a goal to CAPTURE a third of all stormwater runoff by adding green space (roofs, planters, medians, pervious pavement, etc.). To date, they've built nearly 1,100 greened acres and expect to add another 1,300 in the next three years. Targets for stormwater reduction are already exceeded, cutting volume by 1.7 billion gallons. TARP may be an engineering marvel, but it's based on outdated science. Green infrastructure is the best option.

When I lived In Ft. Lauderdale years ago, It's basically at sea level and during a very heavy rain I saw 2 storm sewer caps start shaking violently then get blasted about about 3 or 4 feet in the air as a geyser of water shot out. Never saw anything like that before.

"No one wants to build something on land that can be flooded." Florida

"channelisation isn't all it's cut out to be; it's ugly, for one" not to mention all the terminators arriving from the future to conduct armed bike/truck chases along them. bloody nightmare, i tell you.

i live in a city that was built on wetlands. every few years we have giant floods. they keep paving more land for new subdivisions without any stormdrain solutions, and the floods keep getting worse. go figure!

"Humans are notoriously bad at assessing risk." Not to mention, we give ourselves incentives to ignore risk. National Flood Insurance in the US is cheap and until 2004 paid for itself, but large disasters in especially vulnerable (ie: high risk) regions has accumulated a large debt.

In Southern AZ, we route and collect rain water to store it in man made storm water reservoirs to feed the water tables. The gray water is also reused to water public area like parks, golf courses, schools and shopping centers.

The city I used to live in (Janesville, WI) seemed to solved most of its stormwater drainage issues by leaving in place most of the natural drainage that already existed. Probably partially modified as needed. But the result is a series of what they call "Greenways". These are vegetation covered drainage ditches. All this property is owned by the city. Stormwater from the streets is simply piped to the nearest greenway. During large rains, these greenways fill up with water and drain it to the local river. During dry periods, they are pleasant green areas through the city, breaking up the monotonous housing, giving many properties a green area behind their property instead of more houses, and some even have trails mowed through the grass that allow you to walk through them when it's not flooded.

My neighbourhood has a "storm water dry pond" which was planted with native vegetation that is flood and drought tolerant. They spent a decade or so caring for it so it would all get established properly and now it's basically just another natural area. Albeit with signs warning of the flash flooding risk and the usual propaganda signs describing the project. It's actually a fairly nice park area. This seems to be the sort of thing Calgary has been doing for quite a while now.

I love how many post-10 shoutouts there are in the comments. post10 - practical engineering collab when?

Was talking to a woman who works in aqua engineering and one of her favorite options is to use simple brick or cobblestone streets. By using bricks without mortar, plants can grow between the bricks and water can soak into the ground between them. This is a great alternative to permeable concrete for cities in colder regions, and is a tried and true technology.