This is my Story and Id like to share it!

My Name is: Norman Dewar I would like to share a Pecha-Kucha presentation about:

The impact of trees on storm water runoff in an urban environment

Community Dialogue Series October 13, 2100

The style of presentation being used is called Pecha-Kucha. Drawing its name from the Japanese term for the sound of "chit chat", it rests on a presentation format that is based on a simple idea: Pecha Kucha: 20 images x 20 seconds. 6 minutes 40 seconds per presenter. Note: Because of the presentation style, you need the speaker notes to make sense of the slides so Ive embedded them in the slides. Also because of the style presentation, I was not able to formally credit my sources until the end of the presentation.

City sewers overwhelmed again

Heavy rains in Charlottetown caused the city's combined stormwater and sanitary sewer system to overflow again.

Im reading yet another story about the Citys stormwater system overflowing.

The interception effect

And I look out my office window and notice this. It has been raining for an hour but still the pavement is dry in a 25 ft radius around this very large maple tree on my street.

During the past five years, in my neighbourhood of only 5 city lots, weve lost: 6 mature elms (70 years old?) 12 young elms (30 years old?) 3 mature poplars (50 years old?)

37
And this is the number of elms trees I heard the City has cut down this year. Though I havent confirmed this number, seeing a work crew cutting down one of these old majestic elms hardly makes you look twice, it is so common.

Could this be impacting stormwater runoff in Charlotteotwn???

And that got me thinking, based on what I saw from my window, could this be impacting stormwater runoff in Charlottetown?

and I found these numbers

Rainfall Interception by Trees
10 - 40% of annual rainfall (Zinke, 1967) Canopy interception ave. 35-40% (Calder 1990, 2003) Even in winter 15% for a deciduous tree (Xiao et al 2000). 27% for an evergreen species (Xiao et al 2000).

A 1 inch of rain in Charlottetown equals 27,697,080 gallons of water. A loss of 10% tree canopy means 0.5 1.3 million gallons more stormwater.

Urban vs Forested Storm Hydrographs

400 350

300

urban

Flow Rate

250

200

150

100

forest

50

0 0 2 4 6 8 10 12 14 16

Time
As show in in this graph, in an urban environment, the storm water flow is flashy versus a forest which holds holds the water and releases it slowly over a longer period.

Fewer Trees = More Runoff

trees & stormwater: some conclusions

1. Increases in tree cover and tree size will result in reduced total runoff and peak runoff rates

trees & stormwater: some conclusions

1. Increases in tree cover and tree size will result in reduced total runoff and peak runoff rates 2. Effects on runoff are greatest when urban trees are large and well-established

2. Effects on runoff are greatest when urban trees are large and well-established These are exactly the trees we are losing. Whatever engineering solutions we come up with today will be inadequate in the future unless we change our stormwater management practices The trees we plant today could extend the life of our stormwater system

3. Effects on runoff are greatest when urban trees are large and well-established These are exactly the trees we are losing. What ever engineering solutions we come up with today, we can expect their capacity will be exceeded in 40 years The trees we plant today could extend the life of our stormwater system A small investment today could return millions of dollars in future savings.

Are we missing an opportunity?

The following slides contain links to the presentations which I used as reference. They are excellent and I encourage you to have a look.

using

trees

to reduce stormwater runoff

http://www.slideshare.net/watershedprotection/using-trees-to-reduce-stormwater-runoff-formatted-presentation

urban concepts

watershed forestry

http://www.slideshare.net/watershedprotection/formatted-uwf-slideshow-presentation