Poster Session: Urban Landscape

Impacts of impervious surface on landscape hydrology. Shuster, William^*,1, Bonta, James^*,2, Warnemuende, Elizabeth^*,3, Thurston, Hale^*,1, Smith, Doug^{*,2, 3}, ¹ US Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Research and Development, National Risk Management Research Laboratory, Cincinnati, OH, USA² US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, Coshocton, OH, USA³ US Department of Agriculture, Agricultural Research Service, National Soil Erosion Research Laboratory, W. Lafayette, IN, USA

ABSTRACT- Impervious surface is the primary agent of hydrologic change in urbanizing watersheds, and its impacts on hydrologic cycles and terrestrial ecological regimes are multifold. Although urbanization has a major impact on watershed hydrology, runoff formation processes and other aspects of change in the urban hydrologic cycle are still not clear, hampering effective management of these impacts. In particular, there are few or no studies that we are aware of which determine the underlying mechanisms and extent of these impacts that drive hydrologic change as landscapes are altered through the incremental addition of impervious surfaces. The USDA-ARS and USEPA-ORD-NRMRL have initiated a pilot program to study the impacts of different extents and geometries of simulated impervious surface on experimental watersheds located at the North Appalachian Experimental Watershed, Coshocton OH. We present a summary of results from recent rainfall simulation work with simulated landscapes, which were altered with varying levels and geometries of impervious surface; baseline field watershed data, and an experimental design for our ongoing field evaluations.

KEY WORDS: Urbanization, Hydrology, Impervious Surface, Landscapes, Ecosystems