Urban Form and Watershed Management: How Zoning Influences Residential Stormwater Volumes

Abstract

This paper reports the results of a study on residential parcel design and development-induced stormwater runoff in the City of Madison, Wisconsin. To assess the influence of municipal zoning and subdivision regulations on residential stormwater production, high-resolution aerial photography and property tax data for over 38000 single-family residential parcels were used to measure the impervious cover and modeled runoff associated with a typical two-year storm. The results of the analysis suggest that stormwater runoff volumes could be significantly reduced with only modest changes to municipal land-development regulations and with no reduction in the size of the residential structure. Following the presentation of the methodology and findings, the paper concludes with a discussion of targeted revisions to zoning and subdivision regulations that, if implemented, could reduce the runoff volume from new residential parcels in Madison by over 30%.