• Ongoing coronavirus / COVID-19 discussion: how is the pandemic affecting your community, workplace, and wellness? 🦠

    Working from home? So are we. Come join us! Cyburbia is a friendly big tent, where we share our experiences and thoughts about urban planning practice, planning adjacent topics, and whatever else comes to mind. No ads, no spam, no social distancing.

Water / hydrology Stormwater management plans for a flat city

Hawkeye66

Hawkeye66

Cyburbian
Messages
684
Points
25
My new town is pretty flat. By far the flattest of any I have worked in. They also are in need of a stormwater management plan. Can anyone point me to a plan for a city/town that is pretty flat? What things should we keep in mind as we develop it. This is actually a fairly challenging engineering problem.
 
mendelman

mendelman

Unfrozen Caveman Planner
Staff member
Moderator
Messages
15,244
Points
59
Hawkeye66 said:
My new town is pretty flat. By far the flattest of any I have worked in. They also are in need of a stormwater management plan. Can anyone point me to a plan for a city/town that is pretty flat? What things should we keep in mind as we develop it. This is actually a fairly challenging engineering problem.
Click to expand...
I would think a city in coastal-ish FL, LA, NC, SC, etc have tools or ways to think through this.

Maybe not exact analogs, but close - flat coastal areas at/very near sea level.

I think your goal is to be gravity fed structures to man made structures below the common surface elevation.

Talk to Arlington Heights, IL (2nd/3rd ring NW Chicago suburb). The landscape is fairly flat without many nearby surface water courses.

So over the decades they've had to build large manmade water retention and/or detention facilities.
 
P

P_Johnson76

Cyburbian
Messages
258
Points
11
Hawkeye66 said:
My new town is pretty flat. By far the flattest of any I have worked in. They also are in need of a stormwater management plan. Can anyone point me to a plan for a city/town that is pretty flat? What things should we keep in mind as we develop it. This is actually a fairly challenging engineering problem.
Click to expand...
If the city is so flat is storm water an issue? Or is the need to add facilities based on state code?
 
DVD

DVD

Cyburbian
Messages
15,486
Points
53
I would think Phoenix metro is relatively flat, but even we have washes and things to deal with not to mention the occasional mountain and that we're in a valley. A large flat valley. Generally we just do a lot of retention unless you happen to be next to a wash. In the end all water runs southwest for us.
 
P

P_Johnson76

Cyburbian
Messages
258
Points
11
DVD said:
I would think Phoenix metro is relatively flat, but even we have washes and things to deal with not to mention the occasional mountain and that we're in a valley. A large flat valley. Generally we just do a lot of retention unless you happen to be next to a wash. In the end all water runs southwest for us.
Click to expand...
Compared to the Midwest I've noticed phoenix has almost no detention ponds. Maybe they're just smaller or more out of the way
 
DVD

DVD

Cyburbian
Messages
15,486
Points
53
We don't do a lot of detention. It's mostly retention. Something to do with the way the ground takes in the water. I'm no engineer. We also get a lot of underground retention so you don't see as many ponds. Most of what is visible is just depressed areas around commercial centers or greenbelts in neighborhoods. For some reason we don't get as much rain as other places so the ponds don't have to be as large.
 
Top