A comprehensive stormwater management plan: opportunities to incorporate stormwater wetlands into the University of Puerto Rico stormwater management program

Abstract

The environment is continuously deteriorating due to the presence of human activity and the permanent landscape alterations that compromise the ecosystem. One of these practices is the discharge of large volumes of untreated stormwater into receiving natural bodies of water. In addition to questionable stormwater discharge practices, rainwater that is not redirected and cannot infiltrate through the impervious surfaces then accumulates and produces floods that threaten the environment and humans as well. Conventional methods of stormwater management exist that are widely used around the world; however, new eco-friendly alternative methods mainly in the form of green infrastructure have been used for the same purpose, namely, constructed wetlands that are being proposed in this thesis. The objective of this study is the design of a constructed wetland system to manage stormwater originating from the UPRRP campus that can host 13,000 students as well as 4,000 faculty and staff. The idea is that the stormwater flow would be redirected into strategically placed constructed wetlands within the UPRRP campus to provide pre-treatment and flow control. The runoff that is not retained in these stormwater wetland cells is then discharged into the conventional stormwater management infrastructure the UPRRP uses. Last, but not least, an evaluation was conducted to determine the cost a project of this magnitude would amount to.