Lessen the Impact with L.I.D.

Flooding is a concern in the Pacific Northwest during the rainy winter and spring months. During a storm, rainwater sheds off streets, sidewalks, and buildings into sewers, nearby lakes, streams, and other bodies of water carrying along with it pollutants, such as fertilizers and sediment. Storm water pollution contaminates our local bodies of water and is a detriment to fish and wildlife. Storm water management is a major concern for the built environment, including large developments down to the private home. Developing and designing to address and even utilize storm water will help to lessen the impact heavy rains will have on your property, your neighborhood, and local environs. Utilizing Low Impact Development (LID) methods for managing storm water is not only smart, but is also required in many jurisdictions for new developments, new construction, and major renovation projects.

What is Low Impact Development (LID)?

Low Impact Development (LID) for storm water management provides alternatives to the traditional method of directing all the storm water to the city sewer. These alternate techniques provide ways to store, slowly filter, or infiltrate storm water naturally into your site. Ideally, a combination of techniques is used to simulate the natural way storm water would have been absorbed into the site prior to development.

Why should we use Low Impact Development (LID) techniques?

-LID storm water management techniques help reduce the cost of development on the site rather than spending large amounts of money building infrastructure to deal with storm water
-Helps to reduce or eliminate flooding
-Helps reduce storm water pollution in local streams, lakes, and other bodies of water making them safer and cleaner for us (and the fish) to enjoy
-Provides aesthetically pleasing landscape, more green space, and habitat for wildlife

What are some LID storm water management techniques?

Developers, planners, architects, landscape architects, and homeowners should be considering LID methods for each and every project; be it in an urban, suburban, or rural setting. An appropriate combination of methods will significantly reduce the amount of storm water shed from the site. Some methods include:

Pervious Paving (specific type of paving that allows water to infiltrate through the paving surface)
Rainwater Harvesting (rainwater collection from rooftops into rain barrels or cisterns which can be used for irrigation or for domestic water use in some jurisdictions)
Rain Garden (designated planted area on the site to collect storm water and allow it to percolate slowly back into the ground)
Green/Vegetative Roof (planted roof to help absorb and slow the flow of storm water run off)
Bio Swale (designated planted area along a street, parking lot, or other impervious surface that collects storm water and helps it to percolate slowly into the ground)

To learn more about Low Impact Development in your neighborhood, visit your local city or county website.

More on green building, visit H2D’s Architecture and Design blog.

Heidi Helgeson