News

A team of faculty members from Southern Illinois University Edwardsville (SIUE) and the University of Illinois at Urbana Champaign (UIUC) has received a nearly $225,000 grant from the Illinois Department of Transportation (IDOT) to investigate alternative solutions for controlling storm water run-off.

Dr. Abdolreza (Reza) Osouli, assistant professor in the SIUE Department of Civil Engineering, serves as the principal investigator. Drs. Laurent Ahiablame and Jianpeng Zhou, also from SIUE’s Department of Civil Engineering, and Mark Grinter from the SIUE Department of Construction, and UIUC’s Dr. Timothy D. Stark from Civil and Environmental Engineering are the co-principal investigators.

The three-year IDOT grant, which was made possible through the Illinois Center for Transportation (ICT) will allow the team to investigate and determine effective Best Management Practices (BMP) to infiltrate or retain the first one-inch storm water run-off on site.

“Design of structures to handle storm water is a complicated problem,” said SIUE School of Engineering Dean Hasan Sevim. “It has to safely accommodate a huge volume of water in a short period of time, while being economically feasible.

“SIUE researchers have been building a great reputation in bringing solutions to environmental and transportation engineering problems in Illinois and Missouri, and in the nation over the last several years. This project is another example in recognition of their talents.”

Important factors to be examined will include site geotechnical investigation; longevity of practiced BMPs, and geometry and appropriate sizing, and their performance during and after storm events.

While there are multiple reports and a great deal of research on the use of BMPs to reduce pollutant load, there is limited information on the effectiveness of these practices for infiltrating/retaining storm water run-off. Findings from this research will provide IDOT guidance on application of the BMP practices for Illinois highways.