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Completed SMC Project:
Stormwater Research Needs in Southern California.
The first project completed by the SMC in February 2002 was an assessment of
which research projects should be undertaken. The SMC developed a three step
process to identify these projects. The process included:
- Creation of a white paper outlining the technical issues and management
questions of interest (Appendix 2 of final report)
- Conduct a workshop to develop an agenda of research projects using experts in a
variety of scientific disciplines (Appendix 3 of final report)
- Establish a five-year research plan to implement based upon the workshop
proceedings
More than 50 project ideas were generated in the research agenda workshop. These
were combined, clarified, and prioritized leading to 15 research projects. Each
project was then developed in terms of a problem statement, desired outcome
(products), tasks, schedule, and necessary resources (expertise, costs, and
potential collaborators).
The 15 research projects fell into one of three categories.
- Developing a regional stormwater monitoring infrastructure
Monitoring infrastructure includes projects that find ways to integrate,
standardize or maintain comparability among programs throughout southern
California. These projects include mining existing data, sampling and analysis,
data management and sharing, and testing BMPs.
- Improving the fundamental understanding of stormwater mechanisms and process
Research projects that improve our fundamental understanding of stormwater
mechanisms and processes begin with creating a conceptual model of our existing
understanding of these processes. This will help identify knowledge gaps. It is
expected that there will be at least three gaps in the conceptual model. These
include an evaluation of reference conditions, an evaluation of beneficial uses,
and identifying relative contributions of nonpoint sources to stormwater
discharges.
- Identifying stormwater impacts in receiving waters
Identifying stormwater impacts in receiving waters is the research theme with
the greatest number of projects, reflecting how little is known about this
subject.
Five research projects are geared specifically towards developing tools for
assessing conditions in receiving waters. These tools include freshwater
bioassessments, toxicity testing, faster and more specific methods for
identifying microbial contamination, and identifying indicators of impacts
resulting from increased peak flows.
While the projects are written as individual projects, many of the projects are
inter-related. The final chapter of this document provides an overview of these
relationships showing where the results from one project may feed into another
project
If you have a problem downloading the PDF files. Please contact us at the
following email:  SCSMC.ORG
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