The FOREWORD from the Manual
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency is charged by Congress with protecting the Nation’s land, air, and water resources. Under a mandate of national environmental laws, the Agency strives to formulate and implement actions leading to a compatible balance between human activities and the ability of natural systems to support and nurture life. To meet this mandate, EPA’s research program is providing data and technical support for solving environmental problems today and building a science knowledge base necessary to manage our ecological resources wisely, understand how pollutants affect our health, and prevent or reduce environmental risks in the future.
The National Risk Management Research Laboratory is the Agency’s center for investigation of technological and management approaches for reducing risks from threats to human health and the environment. The focus of the Laboratory’s research program is on methods for the prevention and control of pollution to the air, land, water, and subsurface resources; protection of water quality in public water systems; remediation of contaminated sites and ground water; and prevention and control of indoor air pollution. The goal of this research effort is to catalyze development and implementation of innovative, cost-effective environmental technologies; develop scientific and engineering information needed by EPA to support regulatory and policy decisions; and provide technical support and information transfer to ensure effective implementation of environmental regulations and strategies.
Water quality impairment due to runoff from urban and developing areas continues to be a major threat to the ecological health of our nation’s waterways. The EPA Stormwater Management Model is a computer program that can assess the impacts of such runoff and evaluate the effectiveness of mitigation strategies. This manual presents a number of worked-out examples that shows new users how to set up and apply SWMM to the most common types of stormwater management and design problems encountered in practice.
Sally C. Gutierrez, Director National Risk Management Research Laboratory