Solutions: Low Impact Development

Low Impact Development (LID), sometimes called Low Impact Design, is more than a passing trend in stormwater management. This is a total rethinking of how to develop and manage our cities sustainably. 

The overarching philosophy of LID is to reduce runoff by treating water close to its source. Secondly, you want to return runoff to groundwater, reuse it or store it, and keep the watershed healthy. This isn’t just a theory – communities practicing LID are seeing outcomes like reduced flooding and improved fish populations. There are many reasons beyond reduced stormwater fees to put these efforts into effect but that can also be a great bouns.

Applied broadly, entire cities can mitigate the urban heat affect, increase home values and even improve quality of life for their residents. You can learn more with the EPAs effectiveness report.

There are a lot of opportunities to use LID ideas and creative engineers are constantly coming up with new approaches. There isn’t just one option for everything. Soil type and project size restrictions can impact your list of viable LID options. For example, some soil types don’t allow for enough filtration for underground storage, in challenging locations like bridges, there aren’t a lot of options to treat water through bioretention.

AquaShield’s LID pyramid can help engineers consider different best practices and what might work for their project. Our custom solutions and variety of products are built to help achieve LID goals, regardless of the situation.

Our hydrodynamic separator, Aqua-Swirl™ and media filtration systems, Aqua-Filter and Aqua-Guardian™, Aqua-Ponic™ can also be incorporated into a green infrastructure development plans. For example, these devices can be used as part of a treatment train approach by providing pretreatment for subsurface infiltration, rainwater harvesting systems, detention, or other water storage and conservation practices. 

Our products work with StormTank and others to ensure that clean, treated water is stored and returned to the watershed.

In fact, the Aqua-Shield line of integrated products can be specified to directly contribute or help contribute to gaining credit points in association with the U.S. Green Building Council's (USGBC) Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED) Green Building Rating System.