The Southern California Stormwater Monitoring Coalition (SMC) has renewed its commitment to solving regional stormwater management challenges collaboratively with the development of a comprehensive, five-year research agenda.

The 2019-2024 Research Agenda is being used by the SMC to prioritize, design and execute regional stormwater research projects that the SMC’s 15 member agencies have collectively agreed to fund. The new research agenda builds off the SMC’s previous five-year agenda.

The Research Agenda spans 24 priority research projects that are organized into six thematic areas:

• Microbiology and Human Health Risk
• BMP Monitoring, Implementation and Effectiveness
• Innovative Technology and Science Communication
• Expanding the Utility of Biomonitoring
• Improving Stormwater Monitoring Effectiveness
• Emerging Challenges

At its June 2, 2020 meeting, the SMC Steering Committee unanimously approved initiating four new research projects for 2020-2021 that closely align with its five-year Research Agenda:

• Human Fecal Indicators and Health Risk
• BMP Regional Monitoring
• Laboratory Intercalibration
• Streamlined Annual Reporting

Since its inception in 2001, the SMC has funded nearly 30 research projects valued at $17 million. Half of that effort has come from in-kind resources from non-SMC member agencies, underscoring the value of a collaborative, regional approach to stormwater research.