Associate Professor Jon Hathaway’s recent paper, “Establishing a Framework for the Spatial Identification of Effective Impervious Areas in Gauged Basins: Review and Case Study,” published in the Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment, was recently awarded Best Case Study by the journal.
Co-authored with CEE alumnus Thom Epps (PhD ’18), the paper reviews existing methods to quantify and identify the impervious areas in a watershed that are most detrimental to stream health—Effective Impervious Areas (EIA)—and proposes a new model framework that builds on these methodologies to offer an automated and objective way to spatially identify the most probable impervious areas comprising the EIA.
This work is the first step toward spatially identifying impervious connectivity in watersheds, providing the potential for more scientifically informed watershed management strategies through targeted green-infrastructure installation. That is, finding out where society can get the most “bang for its buck” with interventions.