Water Resources Research Act Program

Details for Project ID 2014DE270B

Water Quality Performance for Paired Bioretention Basins

Institute: Delaware
Year Established: 2014 Start Date: 2014-06-01 End Date: 2015-02-28
Total Federal Funds: $1,500 Total Non-Federal Funds: $2,775

Principal Investigators: Carmine Balascio

Project Summary: This project focuses on a sub-basin of the Cool Run watershed, located on the south campus of the University of Delaware. Cool Run watershed is a tributary of White Clay Creek, which makes the research relevant not only to the university, but the areas around it as well. The White Clay Creek watershed is federally protected as a Wild and Scenic Watershed, which shows that protecting its water quality is a priority even at the national level. Stormwater can cause serious water quality issues, especially during big precipitation events, but smaller more frequent storms can have significant effects, too. Therefore it is important to develop approaches to better manage stormwater and related water quality issues. The purpose of this research is to compare the phosphorous removal performance of two different types of media in a novel bio-infiltration basin installed on the UD campus. A key objective is to determine the effectiveness of an innovative controlled outlet design that is intended to promote removal of nitrogen through denitrification. Results from this research can be used to determine what types of stormwater control measures work best, and to apply these in urbanized streams to improve water quality.