FEBRUARY
13, 2015
WASHINGTON, DC
As
part of President Obama’s Climate Action Plan
Virtual Climate Resilience Toolkit, the U.S. Environmental Protection
Agency (EPA) announced the release of the Climate Adjustment Tool for EPA’s
Stormwater Management Model – a widely-used, downloadable online stormwater
simulation model. The Climate Adjustment Tool allows engineers and planners to
evaluate the performance of water infrastructure while considering future
climate change projections, such as more frequent high-intensity storms and
changes in evaporation rates of seasonal precipitation, to determine the
benefits of resiliency decisions to reduce local economic burden and protect
communities.
“Climate
change means increased risks to our health, our economy, and our environment,”
said EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy. “But with the President’s Climate Action
Plan, the agency is taking action to advance science-based technology, such as
the addition of the Climate Adjustment Tool, to help state and local planners
combat the impacts of climate change, especially significant economic burden
from severe weather, and protect communities through sustainability and
resiliency measures.”
The
new tool will enable users to add climate projections based on the
Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change’s climate change scenarios to
existing simulations to determine the quality of water traveling through
traditional infrastructure - a system of gutters, storm drains, pipes,
channels, collection tanks and storage devices. The tool also has the ability
to model the performance of green infrastructure practices, including permeable
pavement, rain gardens, and green roofs. Engineers and planners are able to accurately
represent any combination of traditional and green infrastructure practices
within an area to determine their effectiveness in managing stormwater and
combined sewer overflows in their community.
Stormwater
runoff is a major environmental problem resulting in flooding, erosion, and
contaminated waters. Every year billions of gallons of raw sewage, trash,
household chemicals, fertilizers, and urban runoff flow into our streams,
rivers and lakes. Polluted stormwater runoff can adversely affect plants,
animals, and people.
The
Climate Adjustment Tool, in addition to other tools in the President’s Climate
Action Plan Virtual
Climate Resilience Toolkit, can help users make planning, analysis, and
design decisions that will guard against the impacts of climate change. Using
these tools to choose the best adaptation options is an innovative and
efficient way to promote healthy waters and support more sustainable
communities. View the Virtual Climate Resilience Toolkit here: http://toolkit.climate.gov/tools
EPA’s
Stormwater Management Model is used throughout the world for stormwater runoff
reduction planning, analysis and design of combined and sanitary sewers, and
other drainage systems. Originally released decades ago, SWMM is now used
in thousands of communities throughout the world, including as the core
modeling engine in cities such as Philadelphia, Cincinnati, Indianapolis, and
Seattle.
To
assist community planners and managers in determining resiliency and
sustainability actions that will help protect against extreme weather and
reduce the local economic burden after a natural disaster, EPA has developed
additional tools, including:
EPA’s Stormwater Calculator-
a
tool that can be used by homeowners, landscapers, and developers to estimate
the amount of rainwater and frequency of runoff on a specific site based on
local soil conditions, land cover, historic rainfall records, and climate
change scenarios.
For
more information on the complementary National Stormwater Calculator, visit:
EPA’s Climate Resilience
Evaluation and Awareness Tool (CREAT)- a tool that assists drinking water
and wastewater utility owners and operators understand potential climate change
threats and assess the related risks. For more information on the Climate
Resilience Evaluation and Awareness Tool, visit:
For additional information about the Stormwater Management Model and Climate Adjustment Tool, visit
For
more information about the President’s Climate Action Plan, visit
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/president27sclimateactionplan.pdf
http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/image/president27sclimateactionplan.pdf
For more information on EPA’s Green Infrastructure research, visit
http://water.epa.gov/infrastructure/greeninfrastructure/index.cfm