Top 4 Municipal Stormwater Management Trends for 2024

Ecopia AI (Ecopia) recently brought together a group of thought leaders and geospatial data experts for an open discussion about challenges and opportunities in stormwater management. Here are some of the key priorities that stormwater industry leaders shared during the conversation.

1. Enhancing climate resilience through stormwater mapping

According to the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), annual precipitation has increased at an average rate of 0.2 inches per decade over the contiguous US. Additionally, a higher percentage of precipitation has come in the form of intense single-day events in recent years. Flooding from climate-related events like these can overwhelm communities leading to infrastructure damage, economic loss, and significant threats to human health and safety. The heightened frequency and intensity of climate events emphasize the importance of stormwater mapping to enhance climate resilience.

Participants in the roundtable described the way municipalities use geospatial data to understand how climate events will affect their stormwater infrastructure. Mapping utility and sewer system features in combination with detailed land cover data that distinguishes between impervious and pervious surfaces is vital for effective stormwater infrastructure management, flood modeling, and climate resilience planning. The presence of impervious surfaces, which are surfaces that prevent water from seeping into the ground, increases the risk of flooding. Accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date data is increasingly helping municipalities track land use change and develop infrastructure that boosts climate resilience to better protect communities from stormwater events.

2. Accessing high-resolution geospatial data to improve stormwater workflows

AI-powered geospatial data: an accurate, efficient, and cost-effective solution

The participants then shared how, historically, it has been time-consuming and expensive to procure the geospatial data needed for stormwater mapping. However, they went on to discuss how advancements in geospatial technology are making it easier for GIS professionals to get the high-resolution mapping data they need to do in-depth analysis and strengthen climate resilience in communities. Specifically, artificial intelligence (AI) is revolutionizing the way stormwater mapping data is produced. Ecopia’s AI-based mapping systems extract detailed land cover features from up-to-date geospatial imagery with the accuracy of a trained GIS professional. This eliminates the need for large-scale manual digitization and provides a fast, cost-effective, and highly accurate solution for municipalities. 

For example, the City of Jacksonville chose Ecopia to provide all pervious and impervious surfaces in Duval County, Florida to enhance stormwater planning and analysis in the region. Ecopia produced and delivered the accurate, comprehensive, and up-to-date land cover data that Jacksonville needed in just four weeks, at a cost that was 84% lower than competitors per parcel. The City of Peterborough also partnered with Ecopia to create a comprehensive land cover dataset to enhance flood resilience in the region and streamline stormwater management, eliminating the need to integrate data from multiple sources.

Enabling change detection in stormwater mapping

The conversation then shifted to our ever-changing world, and how stormwater mapping professionals need to be able to understand how areas have changed over time. Ecopia’s partnerships with leading geospatial imagery providers enable Ecopia to access fresh imagery to provide up-to-date map data and give municipalities the ability to see how regions have evolved from growth and redevelopment. Comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date data is particularly important in terms of stormwater utility fees (SUFs), which are taxes established by municipal governments to fund the creation, improvement, and maintenance of stormwater infrastructure to mitigate flood risk. Municipalities typically adopt one of the four main types of SUF structures: flat fee, tiered, equivalent residential units (ERUs), and residential equivalency factors (REFs). You can read more about the different types of SUFs and how they are calculated here. 

Conventional geospatial data creation methods are highly resource-intensive, involving manual digitization by GIS teams to capture land cover features from imagery for SUF calculations. The participants expressed how the time-consuming nature of this process makes it difficult to track land use changes over time, which can lead to inaccurate SUF calculations and potential annual revenue losses in the millions. Fortunately, advancements in AI have made it possible for municipalities to inform their SUF strategy with comprehensive, accurate, and up-to-date impervious surface data. This has helped municipalities like Detroit scale data creation by 18x, ensuring their SUF calculations are updated annually to reflect any land use change that has occurred. 

3. Building public support for stormwater infrastructure enhancements and SUFs

Stakeholder engagement and education  

Despite how important SUFs are for reducing strain on infrastructure, enhancing hazard mitigation efforts, and promoting climate resilience, the roundtable participants shared that it can be difficult for municipalities to garner public support for SUFs and stormwater infrastructure enhancements. To overcome these challenges, municipalities and planning organizations can build support for stormwater enhancements through public outreach and education to communicate the benefits and importance of efforts. Whether a municipality is introducing an impervious acreage-based fee, proposing to change its rate assessment model, or developing new programs, consulting stakeholders in the region is an important part of the process to help garner support. Raising public awareness about the importance of stormwater protection is essential for fostering the adoption and longevity of programs. Equally important is educating the public about the rationale behind such decisions and the potential return on investment they offer. 

Geospatial visualization as a communication tool

Building upon this topic, the discussion then focused on how geospatial mapping can serve as a visual aid to show the impacts of stormwater on communities and plays an important role in illustrating the process and benefits of stormwater infrastructure enhancements. Making mapping data accessible to stakeholders can help garner support and guide decision-making. For example, if a municipality has a SUF system based on the amount of impervious surface located on each property, a website or public platform that illustrates impervious surfaces on a parcel-by-parcel basis coupled with billing information, detailed descriptions of charges, and information about the impact of rainwater on surfaces, serves as a prime example of public outreach and education that can foster better understanding and support of SUF programs.

4. Strengthening stormwater mapping through collaboration and information sharing

The roundtable discussion wrapped up by highlighting how high-resolution land cover data used for stormwater mapping can be leveraged for additional planning projects within a municipality. Recognizing this can help build engagement and support from other departments, and significantly bolster the backing for stormwater mapping initiatives. This data can also assist in accessing federal funding resources for the modernization of additional infrastructure, as impervious and other land cover datasets can help inform the criteria for the release of funds.

Extending beyond municipal boundaries, communities can exchange resources and insights to discover effective strategies in stormwater management. Information sharing between different municipalities' GIS and planning departments can help foster a dynamic exchange of knowledge and share best practices to improve mutual learning. 

To get involved in our next roundtable or learn more about how high-precision geospatial data for stormwater mapping get in touch with our team.