Flood Loss Avoidance Benefits of Green Infrastructure for Stormwater Management

Download Flood Loss Avoidance Benefits of Green Infrastructure for Stormwater Management

To address the impacts of excess stormwater, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)
evaluated potential scenarios for managing stormwater from new development and redevelopment. The purpose of this study is to examine one of these impacts: flood loss avoidance. This study generated an estimate of the monetary value of flood loss avoidance that could be achieved by using distributed stormwater controls to capture a specified volume of runoff. This stormwater management approach retains on-site small storm events in an attempt to simulate
predevelopment runoff conditions. The study approach consists of estimating flood depths and the associated flood losses with and without GI. The benefits are the losses that are avoided by watershed-wide implementation of GI. In this report, the terms “damages” and “flood losses” are used interchangeably.