The rapid conversion of land to urban and suburban areas has profoundly altered how water flows during and following storm events, putting higher volumes of water and more pollutants into the nation's rivers, lakes, and estuaries. These changes have degraded water quality and habitat in virtually every urban stream system. The Clean Water Act regulatory framework for addressing sewage and industrial wastes is not well suited to the more difficult problem of stormwater discharges. This book calls for an entirely new permitting structure that would put authority and accountability for stormwater discharges at the municipal level. A number of additional actions, such as conserving natural areas, reducing hard surface cover (e.g., roads and parking lots), and retrofitting urban areas with features that hold and treat stormwater, are recommended.

Urban Drainage: A Multilingual Glossary has been written by research engineers and scientists with substantial experience in the urban drainage field. It provides definitive descriptions of urban drainage terms in English, French, Japanese and German, giving guidance on their appropriate usage and context. The glossary also contains many diagrams, tables and technical discussions, and is a very practical tool to facilitate international technical communication in the urban drainage field. Containing well over 850 commonly-used terms in urban drainage, all expressed in a user-friendly manner, the book serves as a valuable resource for both practitioner and academic. Topics covered include: urban hydrology/hydraulics sewerage surface water runoff pollution (groundwater and surface) receiving waters ecology ecotoxicology best management practices urban water resource management Urban Drainage: A Multilingual Glossary represents an initiative of the joint IWA/IAHR Committee on Urban Drainage and has arisen out of the long-standing terminological and tautological difficulties of many terms in common usage within international urban drainage practice. It will be of great use and interest to scientists, engineers and ecologists, professionals and students working in urban hydrology/hydraulics, urban water resource management and regulation, urban planning and ecology.