BACKGROUND

NCHRP Project 20-68A, Scan 16-02, “Leading Landscape Design Practices for Cost-Effective Roadside Water Management,” was conducted to investigate how transportation agencies are applying principles and practices of storm water control measures for roadside water management to mitigate adverse impacts of flooding, drought, and temperature extremes affecting their infrastructure.

Although there is a lot of information available from environmental and national highway agencies, only a few state departments of transportation (DOTs) seem to be fully implementing storm water control measures, practices, and recommendations. One reason for this is the lack of a common definition for storm water control measures This lack of standardization can make it difficult to compare approaches and best practices.

The scan team report for NCHRP Project 20-68A, Scan 16-02, identified eight categories of recommendations based on their findings. Information development and sharing is crucial for successful storm water control measures implementation, but there is currently no national effort to create a community of practice or collaborate among the related topical committees at the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and at the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHTO). Moreover, there are no peer exchanges or conferences held specifically for storm water control measures implementation by state DOTs. To address this, a series of national-level workshops will be conducted to share the scan team's findings and provide a platform for participants to discuss and plan the creation of a community of practice.

OBJECTIVE

The objective of this project is to implement the benefits of storm water control measures for effective roadside water management. This objective will be realized by (1) the development of contextual definitions of storm water control measures; (2) the development and conduct of workshops to disseminate information and gather additional information on storm water control measures; and (3) the development of viable approaches for funding and continuation of information exchange on storm water control measures.