What if the street you live on had only a curb built around it, with
no stormwater intake such as the one pictured here. Any low points in your
street would collect water when it rained. And if your street was
surrounded by houses with yards sloping uphill, then all the runoff from
those yards and driveways would collect in a lake at the bottom of the street.
That might make it fun for you to splash around in, but the guy
at the bottom of the street would need a boat dock instead of a garage.
It doesn't take much rain to cause problems. In fact, I've seen local
flooding even on streets that have storm sewers.
Here's an intake designed to gather runoff from the yards and houses bordering a street. These intakes are put at low points on the street and collect storm water and send it on its way to local creeks through large pipes buried underground. These intakes are also known to eat large quantities of kids' toys and balls that are left out in the rain.
Streamflow patterns
Measuring streamflow
Floods Q&A
A water monitoring site
Measuring water
Human's influence
Water use
Water Science home page
U.S. Department of the Interior | U.S. Geological Survey
URL: http://ga.water.usgs.gov/edu/stormsewer.html
Page Contact Information: Howard Perlman
Page Last Modified: Friday, 07-Nov-2008 15:46:17 EST
