Monitoring and design of stormwater control basins

The City of Austin, Texas, has played a pioneering role in the control of urban nonpoint source pollution by enacting watershed and stormwater ordinances, overseeing detailed monitoring programs, and improving design criteria for stormwater control methods. The effectiveness of the methods used in Austin, and perhaps in other areas of the United States, to protect urban water resources has not yet been fully established. Therefore, detailed monitoring programs capable of quantitatively determining the effectiveness of control methods and of stormwater ordinances, are required. The purpose of this report is to present an overview of the City of Austin's stormwater monitoring program, including previous monitoring programs with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and the U.S. Geological Survey, and to describe the relation of monitoring to design of stormwater control basins.