Stormwater Management and Green Infrastructure Design, Stormwater Retrofits, Planning, and Design

Our Approach

Straughan Environmental led a significant initiative for the District Department of Transportation (DDOT) to enhance water quality and reduce stormwater runoff through the design and implementation of Green Infrastructure (GI) practices in Washington, DC. This project involved the development of a comprehensive geodatabase to manage existing and future GI assets, the creation of a maintenance implementation plan, the standardization of GI design, and the development of a stormwater management siting map to optimize GI implementation.

1. Developed a comprehensive geodatabase for DDOT’s existing and future GI assets within the public right-of-way (PROW). performed georeferencing, digitization, and attribute population for over 2,000 GI and SWM assets from as-builts representing over 60 projects.
2. Developed a maintenance implementation plan for DDOT’s GI assets by benchmarking maintenance practices from other metropolitan agencies. We created inspection and maintenance checklists, established SOPs for GI assets, and provided guidance on integration into the CityWorks system and into the GI/SWM geodatabase.
3. Standardized design scenarios for GI implementation, each tailored to fit specific conditions across 60 different scenarios. These designs incorporated essential elements like plan views, profiles, maintenance tables, and design notes, facilitating quicker and more reliable implementation of future GI projects.
4. Developed a custom, multi tiered suitability model to evaluate over 15 unique GI practices, producing generalized potentially suitable extent boundaries of these practices within DDOT PROW. The output data was used to identify the top 1,000 sites with appropriate GI practices and develop SWM siting maps in areas that would provide the maximum stormwater benefit while minimizing conflicts with existing assets and infrastructure. These maps guided capital budget planning and highlighted high-potential areas for practices such as pervious concrete, bioretention, infiltration trenches, and stormwater wetlands.

This project will help DDOT meet its MS4 permit requirements while providing significant co-benefits to underserved communities, such as improved aesthetics, air quality, and reduced urban heat island effects. Straughan’s expert execution not only modernizes DDOT’s GI operations but also reduces future operating costs and streamlines maintenance processes.

Straughan was the recipient of an Honor Award in Non-Design for the “Stormwater Retrofits, Planning, and Design” project at the ACEC Metropolitan Washington Engineering Excellence Awards competition in 2023 for the 2022-2023 award year!

Learn more about the award winners here.