Document Type
Thesis
Abstract
In this paper, I examine changes in discharge characteristics that occurred as a result of suburban land use transition in the New Town development (located in James City County, Virginia). I continuously recorded precipitation in Williamsburg, Virginia and stream height downstream of the New Town development at Chisel Run, which I used to compile a continuous discharge record in Chisel Run. I examined the relationship between rain total, storm duration, and discharge characteristics at Chisel Run before development (2000-2004) and after development (2007-2008), and at Chambrel stream (in a smaller, forested watershed in Williamsburg) during 2007. I found that the relationship between rainfall duration, rainfall total, and baseflow corrected peak discharge did not significantly change due to development that occurred between 2004 and 2007 in Chisel Run, suggesting that stormwater management techniques have been successful at limiting peak discharges. However, I also found that area and baseflow corrected peak discharges were consistently higher in Chisel Run than Chambrel in storms that occurred in 2007, suggesting that peak discharges in Chisel Run are in fact higher than they would be naturally. Likely reasons for this apparent inconsistency are that |. the area of impervious land cover did not significantly increase in New Town between 2004 and 2007 and 2. Chisel Run has a wide floodplain and an unincised stream that partially buffer it from increases in peak outflows from upstream retention ponds. Neither runoff coefficients nor centroid lags changed significantly between 2004 and 2007 in Chisel Run.
Date Awarded
2008
Department
Geology
Advisor 1
Gregory S. Hancock
Recommended Citation
Calos, Stavros, "Suburbanization and Stormwater Management in NewTown" (2008). Geology Senior Theses. William & Mary. Paper 193.
https://scholarworks.wm.edu/geologyseniors/193
