Utility of Stormwater Monitoring

Abstract

Stormwater runoff is now a major contributor to the pollution of coastal waters in the United States. Public agencies are responding by requiring stormwater monitoring to satisfy the National Pollutant Discharge Elimination System stormwater permit. However, studies to understand the utility of the current programs or to improve their usefulness have not yet been performed. In this paper, we evaluate the land‐use‐based program, the industrial stormwater permit program, and beach water‐quality monitoring in the County of Los Angeles, California, to determine if the results will be helpful to planners and regulators in abating stormwater pollution. The utility of the program has been assessed based on the programs' ability to accurately estimate the emissions for different classes of land use. The land‐use program appears successful, while the industrial monitoring program does not. Beach water‐quality monitoring suffers from a lack of real‐time monitoring techniques. We also provide suggested improvements, such as sampling method and time, and parameter selection.