Characterizing Stormwater Quality: A Fool’s Errand?
What Confidence Can We Place in the Numbers?
“With the passage of time, the stormwater profession has become increasingly aware of the complexities of characterizing stormwater,” wrote Dr. Gary R. Minton in the January-February 2009 issue of Stormwater Magazine.
“What confidence can we place in our attempts, however heroic, to characterize stormwater? What confidence can we place in the numbers?”
“Our community wash-off models have for 40 years been structured based on land use: residential, commercial, and industrial. The deep weakness of such models is that the structure is not directly related to the BMP programs.”
“Let’s consider structuring our models based on scape: roadscape, parkingscape, roofscape, and landscape. This dissection more directly relates to our BMPs,” concludes Dr. Minton.
To read the complete article in Stormwater Magazine, click on Characterizing Stormwater Quality: A Fool's Errand?
Acknowledgement:
Before STORMWATER, The Journal for Surface Water Quality Professionals, there was no single publication written specifically for the professional involved with surface water quality issues, protection, projects, and programs.
About Gary Minton:
Dr. Gary Minton has been a leading contributor to the development of design criteria for rainwater/stormwater treatment relevant to the conditions of the Pacific Northwest. 
He is the author of the textbook Stormwater Treatment.
He has written about the need for a formal, logical and simplified rainwater management framework. To learn more, click on Stormwater Treatment Terminology: A Tower of Babel
Posted March 2010