Project Title: Stormwater Solutions: a Master Drainage Plan

Sponsors: Liberty County Community, Ms. Jaimie Masterson, Texas A&M School of Architecture

Team Members: Darren Siegmund, Grant Dickey, Daniel Stanberry, Kaz Jones

Faculty Advisors: Dr. Rabi Mohtar, Dr. Fouad Jaber

Liberty County sits in the Trinity River floodplain, northeast of Houston. In May, 2015, Liberty County was declared a federal disaster area due to extreme flooding runoff. Texas Target Communities assembled a team to integrate a storm water management plan into their master community development plan, with the goal of protecting the lives and property of residents by developing an effective mitigation plan in compliance with federal and state laws for ten year storms.

The students were charged with developing a master drainage plan for a specified area of Liberty County. The plan was to project future development and effectively utilize the limited funding available, while improving water quality and emphasizing green infrastructure. They were also to ensure that maintenance costs would remain modest and within budget. Using SWAT and SWAT-CUP, the team designed the watershed model, calibrating it for a 10-yr storm. To ensure low impact, they designed rainwater gardens to help with surface runoff and water quality. The team recommended and designed rainwater gardens for harvesting the water and decreasing surface runoff, using tanks to store rainwater that comes rooftop run-offs.  Permeable pavement in areas such as parking lots was recommended to help with surface runoff and water quality. The team presented a fully calibrated watershed model for Liberty County. The design addressed three different scenarios, using Low Impact Design (LID) techniques for the future development of Liberty County. The LID design offers the client a means of planning future development effectively for achieving acceptable, pre-developed levels.