Simulated Sensitivity of Urban Green Infrastructure Practices to Climate Change

Saumya Sarkar Jonathan B. Butcher Thomas E. Johnson Christopher M. Clark

Abstract Climate change is likely to alter the quantity and quality of urban stormwater, presenting a risk to water quality and public health. How might stormwater management practices need to change to address future climate? Answering requires understanding how management practices respond to climate forcing. Traditional “gray” stormwater design employs engineered structures, sized based on assumptions about future rainfall, which have limited flexibility once built. Green infrastructure (GI) uses vegetation, soil, and distributed structures to manage rainwater where it falls and may provide greater flexibility for adaptation. There is, however, uncertainty about how a warmer climate may affect performance of different types of GI. This study uses the hydrologic and biogeochemical watershed model, Regional Hydro-Ecologic Simulation System (RHESSys), to investigate sensitivity of different GI practices to climate. Simulations examine 36 urban “archetypes” representing different development patterns (at the city block scale) of typical U.S. cities, 11 regional climatic settings, and a range of mid-twenty-first-century scenarios based on downscaled climate model output. Results suggest regionally variable effects of climate change on the performance of GI practices for water quantity, water quality, and carbon sequestration. GI is able to mitigate most projected future increases in surface runoff, while bioretention can mitigate increased nitrogen yield at nine of 11 sites. Simulated changes in carbon balance are small, while local evaporative cooling can be substantial. Given uncertainty in the local expression of future climate, infrastructure design should emphasize flexibility and robustness to a range of future conditions.