Abstract
Best management practices (BMP) are defined in the United States Clean Water Act (CWA) as practices or measures that have been demonstrated to be successful in protecting a given water resource from nonpoint source pollution. Unfortunately, the greatest majority of BMPs remain unvalidated in terms of demonstrations of success. Further, there is not a broadly accepted or standardized process of BMP implementation and monitoring methods. Conceivably, if standardized BMP validations were a possibility, practices would be much more transferrable, comparable, and prescriptive. The purpose of this brief communication is to present a generalized yet integrated and customizable BMP decision-making process to encourage decision makers to more deliberately work towards the establishment of standardized approaches to BMP monitoring and validation in mixed-use and/or municipal watersheds. Decision-making processes and challenges to BMP implementation and monitoring are presented that should be considered to advance the practice(s) of BMP implementation. Acceptance of standard approaches may result in more organized and transferrable BMP implementation policies and increased confidence in the responsible use of taxpayer dollars through broad acceptance of methods that yield predictable and replicable results.
Highlights
Pollution from diffuse sources is most often driven by meteorological events and alterations to stormwater runoff processes [1,2]
Best management practices (BMP) implementation in tandem with other practices in critical source areas (CSAs) is important to achieve the goals often delineated in Watershed Management Plans (WMPs) or Total Maximum Daily Loads (TMDLs)
Many observational studies and modeled scenarios have been utilized to evaluate BMP efficacy, BMPs aimed at improving water quality [1,20,21,22,23,24,25]
Summary
Pollution from diffuse sources is most often driven by meteorological events (i.e., precipitation) and alterations to stormwater runoff processes [1,2]. The challenge of transferability necessitates the need to monitor and subsequently quantify stormwater runoff processes, pollutant transporting mechanism(s), and the various pathways contaminants may travel from source areas to receiving water bodies in most if not all contemporary municipal and/or mixed land use watersheds. This is important because with limited information for local watersheds, stormwater managers struggle to predict the effect of local ordinances on local receiving water bodies water quality. The reader is referred to the many supporting citations (and citations therein) for further understanding of the state of the science
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