Knowledge Bank

As climate change brings increasing precipitation to the Midwest and more specifically Ohio, cities will need to ensure that their stormwater management systems are capable of handling this extra water. Green stormwater infrastructure is one way to complement the gray infrastructure systems already in place by reducing the volume of stormwater that goes to the combined sewer systems. This study focused on interviewing relevant stormwater professionals from five different cities within Ohio: Cleveland, Toledo, Columbus, Cincinnati, and Athens, to determine what kinds of green infrastructure they were adding and what some of their barriers or obstacles to implementation were. The results of the interviews were that cities are implementing a variety of kinds of green stormwater infrastructure, including permeable pavers, bio-retention cells, green roofs, rain gardens, rainwater harvesting, tree canopy, and soil cells. The most frequently mentioned challenge or concern was maintenance, especially in terms of who was responsible for completing it and making sure that person understood how to maintain these projects correctly. Other barriers included challenges during construction due to under-informed contractors and difficulties in gaining community support. Although there were some challenges associated with them, funding and policy were not as much of an obstacle as expected. Other factors that were anticipated to be major barriers but ultimately were not include the number of departments in charge of project implementation, the education of elected officials, and an overall consideration of green infrastructure as a priority for these cities. As a final note, it is likely that more green stormwater infrastructure projects will be implemented in Ohio.