85

Optimization for Urban Watershed Management: Stormwater Runoff and

Nonpoint Pollution Control
Arthur McGarity
1


Introduction
Urban and suburban watersheds are degraded by storm-water runoff through a variety
of mechanisms including frequent channel-eroding flows and nonpoint pollutants
originating in wash-off from developed impervious surfaces. The resulting decline in
water quality and loss of aquatic habitat has resulted in "impaired" designations for a
large number of urban streams in the U.S. Increasingly, municipalities that operate
storm sewer systems are being held responsible, under the federal Clean Water Act
(U.S. Code, 1972), for the restoration of water quality. Improvement of water quality
in urban/suburban settings is a complex decision-making problem that usually
requires the cooperative and coordinated efforts of multiple jurisdictions, property
owners, and interest groups. An increasing number of impaired streams have been
the subject of watershed assessment studies, and restoration "action plans" are being
developed. However, the recommendations in these plans are often generic,
especially with regard to the storm-water management projects that are necessary to
restore the quality of the impaired streams.

This exercise introduces the Storm Water Investment Strategy Evaluation
(StormWISE) model, which is used to identify cost effective strategies to improve
water quality in impaired watersheds through reductions in storm water runoff
volume and pollutant loads. The model assists watershed managers who are faced
with the daunting task of selecting sites to implement best management practices
(BMPs) and low impact development (LID) technologies in response to watershed
assessments that identify stream impairments. StormWISE is a "screening model"
because, rather than selecting specific land parcels for installation of treatment
facilities, it is used to establish target levels for investment in projects according to
two aggregated land parcel attributes, land use category and watershed drainage
zone, and also according to the BMP/LID technologies deployed. The StormWISE
model provides a methodology to bridge the large gap between the general
recommendations, typically found in watershed-level studies, and the ultimate site-
specific decisions required at the land parcel level. This screening level analysis will
usually be followed by identification of sites that possess attributes that are ranked
highly by the model for major investments involving deployment of high priority
BMP/LID technologies. If desired, candidate projects can be subjected to further
analysis through detailed simulation studies.



1
Professor, Department of Engineering, Swarthmore College, Swarthmore, PA 19081. E-mail:
amcgari1@swarthmore.edu.

86

Case Study Exercise
In this exercise, you will apply StormWISE to determine an optimal strategy for
improving water quality in Little Crum Creek, which drains 8.3 km
2
(3.2 square
miles) that is part of the Delaware River Estuary watershed. The stream is located in
Delaware County, Pennsylvania and about 10 km (6.2 miles) west of Philadelphia.
Land use in the watershed consists largely of developed residential, commercial, and
institutional parcels, with some undeveloped and lightly developed land, primarily in
the riparian zones. The impaired status of the stream is the result of untreated and
mostly uncontrolled storm-water runoff from municipal storm sewer outfalls and
unbuffered riparian zones. The stream drains four different municipalities, shown in
Figure 1. Water quality problems are quite apparent at Ridley Park Lake near the
bottom of the watershed where sediments accumulate, requiring frequent dredging
and removal at significant cost to the town. Detailed descriptions of the watershed
and its water quality problems appear in studies conducted at Swarthmore College for
the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection (McGarity et al., 2009;
McGarity and Murphy, 2010) which are available online at the link
http://watershed.swarthmore.edu.


Figure 1. The Little Crum Creek Watershed in Suburban Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

87

The result of your StormWISE analysis will be target investment levels for storm
water quality management projects according to the four developed land use
categories (wooded/fields, low intensity, medium intensity, and high intensity) and
two drainage zones (headwaters and lowlands) shown in Figure 1. Seven different
categories of BMP/LID technologies are considered for deployment: riparian buffer
filter strip, constructed wetland/rain garden, bioretention/infiltration pit, rain
barrel/cistern, land restoration by impervious surface removal, permeable pavement,
and green roofs.

Software for this exercise is provided in the form of a Microsoft Excel Visual Basic
for Applications (VBA) file named StormWISE_VBA. The model was developed
on the Excel 2007 platform, but it should also be adaptable for earlier and later
versions of Excel. Running the model requires that macros be enabled and that the
standard Excel solver be installed.

The exercise is performed in two steps: (1) running a load simulation model,
programmed in VBA, with ten years of daily weather data in order to obtain long-
term average runoff volumes and nonpoint pollution export coefficients which serve
as parameters for StormWISE, and (2) solving the StormWISE optimization model
multiple times, using Excel Solver, while exploring how variations in the achievable
environmental benefits (expressed as reductions in annual runoff volume and
pollutant loads) affect the investment priorities (expressed as favored land uses,
drainage zone, and BMP/LID technologies).

Load Simulation Model

StormWISE VBA implements components of the Generalized Watershed Loading
Function (GWLF) model (Haith and Shoemaker, 1987) that are appropriate for a
suburban watershed. The core of the model consists of the urban components of
GWLF (recoded to VBA) that are available separately as the model RUNQUAL
(Haith, 1993). Additional components have been added to the model incorporating
measurements obtained from Swarthmore College's urban runoff monitoring program
(McGarity, et al., 2009) and undergraduate senior design projects (Willis and
McGarity, 2010), and the simulation model has been named the Small Suburban
Watersheds (SSW) model.

The hydrological components of SSW are identical to RUNQUAL, which uses the
Soil Conservation Service (SCS) Curve number method applied to daily precipitation
data (Soil Conservation Service, 1986). Pollutant loadings are generated by two
different mechanisms: build-up/wash-off on land surfaces, and soil erosion on
unpaved and pervious surfaces. The build-up/wash-off component is modeled
exactly as it is in RUNQUAL and similarly to other widely used models such as
SWMM (Huber and Dickinson, 1988) and STORM (Hydrologic Engineering Center,
1977).

The land soil erosion mechanism is related directly to rainfall erosivity, which is
thought by some to be a hydrological variable that is likely to change significantly

88

during the 21
st
century with a warming global climate (Nearing, 2001, Pruski and
Nearing, 2002, and Nearing, et al., 2004). Rainfall erosivity appears in SSW as the
factor R =EI
30
, in the revised universal soil loss equation (RUSLE) (Renard, et al.,
1997), which is used to calculate the land soil erosion component of the stream
sediment load. The equation is applied to daily precipitation data by making the
approximate assumption that each day's precipitation is a separate rain event. R is
fundamentally the product of E, the energy of rainfall impact per unit area over the
course of the storm event (MJ /m
2
) multiplied by I
30
, the peak rainfall intensity (mm/h)
measured over a 30-minute interval during the event. I
30
cannot be calculated directly
from daily precipitation totals. However, Yu (2008) cites several studies that estimate
daily values of R using a power function as shown in Equation 1,


|
aP EI R = =
30
(1)
where P is the daily precipitation as rain (mm) and is determined empirically for
different regions. Yu (2008) cites values of ranging from 1.47 to 1.81. The value
of 1.81, which is from a study by Richardson, et al. (1983) for the United States, is
used in the SSW simulation. The factor a is then determined by finding a value that
produces good agreement with widely published maps, that show annual values of R
for different locations, when an annual average is calculated from Equation 1 using
ten years of local historical daily precipitation data. On days with an average
temperature below the freezing point, the precipitation is assumed to be snow with
negligible erosivity on impact. The value obtained for a in the vicinity of Little Crum
Creek is 0.265 (MJ /ha-day)(mm/h), which, for the 10-year period 1989-1998
produces an average annual value of R equal to 3133 (MJ /ha-year)(mm/h). This
annual value matches well with values published by Foster, et al. (1981) in metric
units for Southeastern Pennsylvania, and it is equivalent to English units of 184
(hundreds of ft-ton
f
/ac-year)(in/h).

SSW is typically run over a period of 10 years using historical weather data on a
watershed having multiple land uses and drainage zones, and results are generated for
average annual sediment, nitrogen, and phosphorous loads aggregated by drainage
zone, land use, and for the entire watershed. The model also generates corresponding
export coefficients, which are loadings per hectare for each combination of land use
and drainage zone, and average pollutant concentrations. These concentrations
compare fairly well with event mean concentrations measured during storm events by
the Little Crum Creek monitoring program (McGarity, et al., 2009).

Optimization Model Mathematical Formulation
The fundamental mathematical formulation is shown in Equations 2-4. This
formulation is similar to the one presented in McGarity (2010). Notation is
summarized in Equations 5-11. Solutions to the model consist of target investment
levels, prioritized by drainage zone and land use, which will achieve specified water
quality benefits at the lowest possible aggregate cost over the entire watershed.

89

OPTIMIZATION MODEL FORMULATION:


ij
I i J j
x Z Minimize

e e
= (2)
Subject to:


min
) (
t
I i J j
ij ijt
B x b >

e e
for T t e (3)
0 >
ij
x for I i e , J j e (4)

NOTATION:

BMP/LID Site Selection Attributes as Sets
= I {drainage zones, indexed by i} (5)
= J {land use categories, indexed by j} (6)

Benefit Set:
= T {benefit categories, indexed by t} (7)

Decision Variables:

ij
x =investment levels for BMP/LID having attribute combination i,j (8)

Objective Function:
Z =total investment in storm water management (9)

Benefit Functions:
( )=
ij ijt
x b contribution to benefit type t resulting from investment x
ij
(10)

Water Quality Goals:

min
t
B =minimum level of total watershed benefits of type t necessary
to achieve water quality goals (11)



For each water quality benefit category t e T, the model requires specification of a
benefit function B
t
(x
ij
) for each combination, i e I and j e J, that exists in the
watershed. Benefit functions are nonlinear, and they exhibit diminishing marginal
returns with increasing levels of investment. They are constructed by ranking
projects for implementation on the basis of marginal returns (such as reductions in
annual runoff volume measured in m
3
/$ or reductions in annual sediment load
measured in kg/$), with the BMP/LID technology producing the largest benefit per
dollar (the "low hanging fruit") selected first, followed by the technology with the
next largest benefit per dollar, and so on.


90

In this exercise, piecewise linear benefit functions are developed, which require an
extended version of the original decision variables. Each variable x
ij
is replaced by a
group of decision variables x
ijk
representing the investment in BMP/LID technology k
e K for each combination of drainage zone i and land use j. When these decision
variables are multiplied by the corresponding benefit function slopes, s
ijkt
, the benefit
functions are expressed as shown in Equation 12. In this context, the water quality
benefits, are expressed as reductions in detrimental storm water loadings, indexed by
T t e ,

including runoff volume and nonpoint pollutant loads: sediment, Nitrogen, and
Phosphorous.

e
=
K k
ijk ijkt ij ijt
x s x b ) ( for I i e , J j e , T t e , (12)
where:
ijkt
s
jk
jt ikt
c
e q
= for I i e
,
J j e
,
K k e , T t e
. (13)

In these formulas:

ikt
q =long-term average efficiency of BMP/LID technology K k e in
improving water quality by reducing detrimental loading T t e

jt
e =annual quantity of detrimental loading T t e per unit of land area,
generated by parcels having land use J j e . For runoff, the
units are m
3
/ha (typically calculated as centimeters or inches in
hydrologic models), and for pollutants the units are kg/ha, and
these quantities are typically called export coefficients.
jk
c =cost of BMP/LID technology K k e per hectare of land treated
when deployed on land use J j e . These costs are derived from
site-based data obtained from typical projects installed on
parcels having land use j.

Finally, it is necessary to account for physical and legal constraints that limit the
applicability of BMP/LID technologies. For each technology, there is a limit on the
load reductions possible and a corresponding upper bound on the resources that can
be invested. This limit can vary by drainage zone and land use. The upper bound is a
model parameter called the upper spending limit, u
ijk
for i e I, j e J, k e K. This
upper bound is calculated by first estimating a "treatment fraction" parameter, f
ijk ,

which is the fraction of land for which technology k is the best treatment choice.
Estimating f
ijk
requires input from experienced storm water and watershed
professionals and some knowledge of local conditions constraining implementation of
BMP/LID technologies. These constraints limit implementation of the more cost
effective options that have high benefit slope values (s
ijkt
) and may force the use of
more expensive or less efficient options that have lower benefit slopes. Given
reasonable estimates of f
ijk
, the upper spending limits are calculated:

91



ij ijk jk ijk
A f c u =

for I i e
,
J j e
,
K ke
(14)
where =
ij
A the aggregated land area in drainage zone i having land use j.

The complete piecewise linear formulation of the StormWISE optimization model is
expressed in Equations 15 - 17.

e e e
=
I i J j K k
ijk
x Z Minimize (15)
Subject to:


min
t
I i J j K k
ijk ijkt
B x s >

e e e
for T t e (16)

ijk ijk
u x s s 0 for I i e , J j e , K ke (17)

This model can be solved as a linear program by the efficient Simplex algorithm as is
used in the Excel solver.

Model Parameters for Little Crum Creek Watershed
The export coefficients are the main physical parameters describing loadings in the
watershed. In this exercise, export coefficients are obtained by running the SSW
model over a ten-year period and calculating annual averages. The SSW parameters
affecting runoff consist of the curve numbers required by the Soil Conservation
Service (SCS) runoff method. Pollutant accumulation rates are also required. Curve
numbers and accumulation rates derived from values in the literature provided in the
RunQual manual (Haith, 1993) are shown in Table 1. These are the default values
used in this exercise. Pollutants of interest are sediment (TSS), Nitrogen (TN), and
Phosphorous (TP). When the model is applied to a watershed for which monitoring
data are available, these parameters can be adjusted to accurately represent local
conditions.










92

Table 1. SCS Curve Numbers and Pollutant Accumulation Rates by Land Use from
Haith (1993)

Impervious Surfaces Pervious Surfaces
SCS
Curve
Number
(Avg)
Pollutant Accumulation
Rate (kg/ha-day)
SCS
Curve
Number
(Avg)
Pollutant
Accumulation Rate
(kg/ha-day)
Land Use TSS TN TP TSS TN TP
Forest/
Wetlands 98 1 0.01 0.001 60 0.8 0.01 0.001
Developed
Wooded/ Fields 98 2.8 0.056 0.0067 60 0.8 0.012 0.0019
Developed Low
Intensity 98 2.5 0.045 0.0045 66 1.3 0.012 0.0016
Developed
Medium
Intensity 98 2.7 0.09 0.0112 72 1.1 0.022 0.0039
Developed High
Intensity 98 2.8 0.101 0.0112 85 0.8 0.012 0.0019

Additional parameters required for the SSW simulation model require geographic
analysis of the specific watershed under study. If Geographic Information System
(GIS) software is available, these parameters can be obtained through computer-based
analyses. These analyses have been performed for the Little Crum Creek watershed
and the results are shown in Table 2.

Table 2. Little Crum Creek Parameters Obtained by GIS Analyses
Land Use
Land Area (Ha)
Impervious
Fraction
Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation
(RUSLE) Parameters
Headwaters
Zone
Lowlands
Zone
Soil
Erodibility
Factor
(K)
Length-
Slope
Factor
(LS)
Cover
factor
(C)
Support
Practice
(P)
Forest/
Wetlands 76.14 43.48 0.15 0.0454 0.451 0.001 1
Developed
Wooded/
Fields 191.16 68.94 0.21 0.0484 0.420 0.01 1
Developed
Low Intensity 222.39 59.04 0.32 0.0436 0.304 0.05 1
Developed
Medium
Intensity 83.70 26.82 0.41 0.0440 0.285 0.05 1
Developed
High
Intensity 36.45 16.65 0.5 0.0449 0.325 0.1 1

93



Several steps are involved in the GIS analyses. First, a digital elevation model
(DEM) layer for the region is obtained. DEM files can be obtained from the U.S.
Geological Survey (USGS) from the National Elevation Dataset (NED) and the
internet web site supporting that service: http://seamless.usgs.gov/ned1.php. DEM
data can be viewed and processed by commercial GIS software (ArcGIS) from ESRI
http://www.esri.com/software/arcgis or by open source software from Idaho State
Universitys Geospatial Software Lab (MapWindow) http://www.mapwindow.org.
The DEM data are used in the next step, which is watershed delineation accomplished
with a software add-on that runs within the GIS program. In this exercise, the
delineation program TauDem, available for free from Utah State University,
http://hydrology.usu.edu/taudem/taudem5.0, was used (Tarbotton, 1997). The
delineation step provides the watershed boundaries and the approximate locations of
the stream channels. In areas with extensive storm sewer systems, the flow channels
may differ from the natural stream beds, and some manual adjustments may be
necessary. Also obtained from delineation are the boundaries of drainage zones
within the watershed. In this exercise, the Strahler stream order (Strahler, 1952) of
the stream channels, as determined by Taudem, are used to distinguish between the
Headwaters and the Lowlands zones. The land draining into first and second order
streams is considered headwaters, and the land draining into third and fourth order
streams is considered lowlands. In other StormWISE analyses, different ways of
designating drainage zones may be relevant, such as considering each subwatershed
catchment to be a different drainage zone.

Land use categories are based on a GIS database obtained from satellite imagery
processed for the U.S. National Land-Cover Database (NLCD), which is available
online from the Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics Consortium:
http://www.mrlc.gov (MRLC, 2001). The twelve different NLCD land cover
categories that occur in the Little Crum Creek Watershed are grouped into the six
land use categories shown in Figure 1. Land areas associated with land use categories
in each of the two drainage zones are calculated by GIS software by overlaying the
land use raster image with the drainage zone boundary polygon vector map and
deploying spatial analysis tools. Four land use categories were considered to be
available for installation of BMP/LID technologies: (1) Developed Wooded/Fields,
(2) Developed Low Intensity, (3) Developed Medium Intensity, and (4) Developed
High Intensity. Another raster layer used in the analysis is one containing impervious
percentages for each pixel on the map. This layer, combined with the land use
category raster, can be used to determine the impervious fraction parameters in Table
2. Finally, values for RUSLE parameters K (soil erodibility) and LS (length-slope)
are obtained by combining the land use raster with a soil-type GIS layer and the DEM
raster, respectively.

Another set of parameters must be estimated in order to characterize the BMP/LID
technologies under consideration for deployment in the watershed. These consist of
the marginal cost parameters c
jk
for j e J and k e K and the treatable fractions, f
ijk
for

94

i e I, j e J and k e K. Table 3 shows the values used in the Little Crum Creek case
study for seven BMP/LID technologies. These values do not vary with drainage zone
in this exercise, but the model can accommodate such variations if they are relevant.
The cost parameters are taken from a study in 2010 of BMP costs including
equipment and labor based on data from installations in the U.S., scaled for inflation
and for regional variations, adjusted to the Philadelphia, PA area (McGarity, 2010).
Maintenance costs are not included in this example, although it would be possible to
include the present value of maintenance costs if estimates are available. Treatable
fractions are presently rough estimates based on the judgment of watershed
management professionals and stakeholders familiar with the watershed. The
fractions used in the Little Crum Creek study were obtained in consultation with
municipal officials and experienced professionals advising the local watershed
association. As experience in implementation of watershed action plans becomes
widespread, the accuracy of values assigned to the treatment fractions should
improve.
Finally, it is necessary to estimate the long-term annual load reduction efficiencies of
the BMP/LID technologies under consideration for each detrimental load that must be
reduced in order to improve water quality. It is well known that short-term removal
efficiencies of LID/BMP technologies vary widely and can even be negative.
However, watershed-level models incorporating load reductions usually incorporate
an efficiency factor based on a long-term load reduction fraction, which is what q
ikt

represents in this paper. Table 4 shows the values used in the Little Crum Creek case
study. The base values are set for installations in the headwaters zone where the
volumes of water treated are fairly predictable. A scale factor is used to adjust these
efficiencies for the reduced performance expected for certain BMP/LID technologies
in the lowlands where the frequency of untreatable or partially treatable high flows is
expected to be higher than in the headwaters.

95



Table 3. BMP/LID Marginal Costs (c, $/Kha) and Treatment Fractions (f) by Land Use





















Marginal costs c include installed capital costs in $1000s per hectare of treated land surface.

Land Use
Riparian
Buffer
Filter Strip
Constructed
Wetland /
Rain
Garden
Bioretention
/ Infiltration
Pit
Rain Barrel
/ Cistern
Impervious
Removal
Permeable
Pavement Green Roof
c f c f c f c f c f c f c f
Forest/
Wetlands
- 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0
Developed
Wooded/ Fields
$21.7 0.18 $12.4 0.82 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0 - 0
Developed Low
Intensity
$30.7 0.16 $15.5 0.29 $57.0 0.25 $102. 0.25 $81.3 0.05 - 0 - 0
Developed
Medium
Intensity
$38.0 0.19 $47.6 0.15 $69.7 0.16 $75.6 0.15 $101. 0.10 $760. 0.10 $1,077 0.15
Developed
High Intensity
- 0 $20.7 0.15 $83.0 0.20 $90.2 0.20 $120. 0.10 $907. 0.15 $1,285 0.20

96

Table 4. BMP/LID Long-term Annual Load Reduction Efficiencies by Land

Use and Drainage Zone
BMP/LID Technology
Load Reduction Efficiency in
Headwaters Zone
Lowlands Zone
Scale Factor
Runoff
Volume TSS TN TP
Riparian Buffer Filter
Strip
0.25 0.84 0.20 0.40 0.8
Constructed Wetland /
Rain Garden
0.90 0.71 0.19 0.56 0.8
Bioretention / Infiltration
Pit
0.90 0.81 0.49 0.29 0.8
Rain Barrel / Cistern
0.90 0.10 0.10 0.10 1.0
Impervious Removal
0.50 0.50 0.50 0.50 1.0
Permeable Pavement
0.90 0.65 0.82 0.65 1.0
Green Roof
0.90 0.05 0.82 0.65 1.0


Instructions for Running StormWISE_VBA

1. Open the StormWISE_VBA file using Microsoft Excel, and enable macros.
2. Select the Case_Study_Main tab and read the instruction on that sheet.
3. Select the Land_Data tab and set the parameters for the SSW runoff and
pollutant load simulation model.
4. Select the BMP_Data tab and set the parameters for the StormWISE model
required to calculate benefit slopes.
5. Select the Case_Study_Main tab. Click on the StormWISE Setup button
to run the SSW load simulation VBA program. You will see the various
screens containing model input and receiving model output flash by as the
model runs. If any of the required sheets have been renamed, this step will
end with an error report, so do not rename any of the standard sheet tabs.
6. Specify the desired load reductions on the Case_Study_Main sheet under
the column labeled Specified Target. Do not exceed the values indicated in
the column labeled Maximum Achievable.

97

7. Click on the Solve StormWISE button to generate the optimal solution
associated with the specified load reduction targets. Note that the Excel
Solver sometimes reports that it can not find a feasible solution, or it may
erroneously report that the model is not linear. Usually, clicking the Solve
StormWISE button again will yield the correct solution. One way to avoid
this problem is to start by specifying targets that are a small fraction of the
Maximum Achievable levels and gradually increasing the targets.
8. Observe results in columns under the headings Benefits Achieved and also
in columns A-F, rows 14 108 under the heading Spending Report. More
details of the optimal solution are displayed on the sheet labeled
Case_Study_Benefits under the heading labeled
Benefits_Achieved_at_Optimum.

Example of StormWISE Model Results

To illustrate a solution to the optimization model, the targets for all four load
reductions are set arbitrarily to 50% of the maximum achievable. The Benefits
Report is shown in Table 5. Note that all of the specified target load reductions are
achieved or exceeded, as required by all feasible solutions to the problem. At least
one of the targets will be binding, and in this case, the target for annual Nitrogen
reductions is achieved exactly, while all other targets are exceeded.

Table 5. Optimal StormWISE Solution Benefits Report

Type of Load
Reduction
Desired
BENEFIT TARGETS BENEFITS ACHIEVED
Maximum
Achievable
Load
Reduction
Specified
Target
Load
Reduction
Load
Reductions
Achieved
Fraction of
Maximum
Achievable
Fraction
of Annual
Load
Runoff Volume
(m3) 1,197,640 598,820 736,672 62% 43%
TSS (kg) 310,438 155,219 215,736 69% 39%
TN (kg) 820 410 410 50% 16%
TP (kg) 123 62 78 63% 26%

Table 6 shows the spending report for this solution. We see that reducing pollutant
loads by at least 50% of the maximum achievable by the proposed suite of BMP/LID
technologies costs about $12.5 million over the entire 3.2 mi
2
watershed, which is
17% of the amount that would be spent if all of the technologies were deployed at the
maximum treatment fraction levels specified in Table 3. The distribution of these
costs is also displayed in Table 6 according to draingage zone, land use, and

98

BMP/LID technology. These results can help watershed managers set priorities in the
search for sites at the land parcel level where storm water treatment technologies
should be installed so as to achieve water quality goals at minimum cost.

Table 6. Optimal StormWISE Solution - Spending Report

Optimal Spending Summaries Upper Limit
Optimal
Spending
Fraction of
Upper Limit
Optimal Spending Total: $73,578,890 $12,478,652 17%
Optimal Spending by Drainage Zone:
Headwaters $54,465,961 $10,222,804 19%
Lowlands $19,112,929 $2,255,848 12%
Optimal Spending by Land Use Category:
Forest/ Wetlands $0 $0 NA
Developed Wooded/ Fields $3,651,561 $2,636,222 72%
Developed Low Intensity $14,954,866 $4,414,563 30%
Developed Medium Intensity $31,449,051 $3,741,982 12%
Developed High Intensity $23,523,413 $1,685,885 7%
Optimal Spending by BMP:
Riparian Buffer Filter Strip / Swale $3,194,760 $798,378 25%
Constructed Wetland / Rain Garden $4,853,479 $4,662,285 96%
Bio-retention / Infiltration Pit $6,127,898 $5,265,033 86%
Rain Barrel / Cistern $9,363,685 $0 0%
Impervious Removal $2,897,285 $1,752,955 61%
Permeable Pavement $15,631,445 $0 0%
Green Roof $31,510,336 $0 0%
Suggestions for Exercises
Run StormWISE for a range of runoff and pollutant load reductions, in each case
emphasizing a different environmental benefit: reductions in (1) runoff volume, (2)
sediment load, (3) Nitrogen load, and (4) Phosphorous load. Generate stacked area
plots of optimal spending versus specified load reduction, displaying, on separate
graphs, the optimal spending allocatations by drainage zone, by land use, and by

99

BMP/LID technology. Also generate a plot, for each of these cases, of the percentage
load reductions achieved for all four loads versus the percentage reduction requested.

Select a single solution point for the first case, i.e. a specific runoff volume reduction
level, associated with a substantial investment that will be necessary to achieve water
quality goals on this impaired stream. Then, include specified reductions in sediment,
Nitrogen, and Phosphorous loads, individually and then jointly, above the levels
achieved when runoff volume alone was targeted for reducion. You will be exploring
the space of solutions where the different load reduction targets are interacting.

Extensions
The following extensions are suggested for further exercises.

1. Write a VBA Macro to automate the process of solving the model for
parametric variations in the specified load reduction targets, and automatically
generate plots of the results.
2. Create a multiobjective model by converting the mathematical optimization
formulation to maximize a vector objective function consisting of all four load
reduction benefit functions subject to a budget constraint on the total
investment over the watershed. For further guidance, see the paper on
StormWISE by McGarity in the ASCE Journal of Water Resources Planning
and Management, cited in References as McGarity, 2012.
3. Implement the LP in a modeling language such as AMPL or GAMS.
4. Use export coefficients from literature for simple screening analysis applied to
another watershed.
5. Examine other BMP/LID options.
6. Run the SSW simulation model using downscaled precipitation and
temperature data from a General Circulation Model (GCM) implementing a
greenhouse gas emission scenario from the International Panel of Climate
Change (IPCC). Examine how sediment load reductions based on historical
data can be offset by higher rates of erosion caused by increasing frequency
of highly erosive intense storms. See the citation for McGarity, 2011 (AWRA
Specialty Conference on Climate Change Impacts on Water Resources).

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