Green Roofs - Living Architecture Monitor - Spring 2018 - 5

MH: Being from Florida, this is very much a reality for the engineering community. I am starting to
see more municipalities looking at long-term modeling and planning projects that assess the current
state of drainage infrastructure and examine the resiliency based on different climate projections.
Additionally, municipalities are looking to model more extreme storm events in their floodplain
modeling to understand the potential impacts of a changing climate. This information is used to
prioritize infrastructure upgrades in watershed wide planning.
3. Green infrastructure is increasingly being recognized as a complementary approach to addressing stormwater issues on new and existing buildings and sites. How well are civil engineers adapting to these changes?
EFB: Civil Engineers (CE) that have opportunities to learn how different GI technologies work tend
to be very receptive! Among the challenges we face in broader scale adoption include:
* Implementation of nearly all stormwater management projects is driven by regulation and/or
development policy. In many cases, regulations and policy have not kept pace with research or
practical observation. In some cases, existing policies actually hinder adoption of GI solutions.
* In the bigger picture of infrastructure, GI is very new. There is a strong need for technical training
of the existing design and construction industry. However, without clients or regulatory services
demanding GI, there is little incentive to allocate resources to new training.
* Stormwater design integrates knowledge from several different topics within Civil Engineering.
From a curriculum perspective, CE courses in stormwater design are most likely offered at the
graduate level. Undergraduate curricula in CE are strongly dictated by accreditation, which means
that many undergraduates simply don't get the opportunity to enroll, if there is even a course
offered.
MH: Based on my experiences, I think civil engineers are adapting and supporting green infrastructure (GI). Typically, local building codes are the biggest impediment to more wide-spread use. I have
seen some municipalities go as far as rewriting their building codes to remove impediments to GI as
well as incentivize the use of GI by allowing designers to take credit for green space requirements,
as an example. I believe the GI will continue to gain in popularity, particularly in urban areas where
space is limited, and cost of land prohibits building large stormwater ponds or other large footprint
BMPs.
4. Engineering is very liability sensitive. Are there some types of green infrastructure that are currently better
accepted by civil engineers than others, and if so why?
EFB: To some extent I think preference is given to some GI techniques over others based on
perceptions of construction and maintenance costs. I use the word perception specifically. For
example, self-mitigating runoff controls like permeable pavement and green roofs do cost more
to build compared to a conventional pavement or rooftop - if all you're considering is the cost
of the road or the roof. This kind of silo-accounting omits the cost of building an otherwise
required downstream stormwater control that occupies more land, needs catch basins and buried
pipes to convey runoff to it ... and all of that infrastructure also requires long-term maintenance.
Dismissal of permeable pavement because of maintenance perceptions suggest poor understanding of appropriate site selection. Likewise, excellent stormwater control in many climates can be

Dr. Elizabeth Fassman-Beck is
an Associate Professor of Civil
Engineering at Stevens Institute
of Technology in New Jersey.
Her research on stormwater green
infrastructure design seeks to
optimize each technology's ability
to reduce runoff hydrology and
improve water quality.

Geosyntec is a specialized
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sector clients to address new
ventures and complex problems
involving our environment, natural
resources, and civil infrastructure.
Geosyntec delivers solutions with
a combined staff exceeding 1,200
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