SMC developing stormwater research priorities for next 5 years

The SMC has begun establishing its strategic research directions over the next five years, convening an independent expert advisory panel that developed a recommended 2024-2029 research agenda and then identifying its top-ranked candidate research projects from this agenda.

The SMC’s 2024-2029 research planning cycle began in September 2024 with a three-day expert panel workshop, during which the 12 panelists developed consensus on which thematic research areas and individual projects should be the focus of the next five years of SMC research.

All of the panel’s recommendations, which were codified in the SMC’s published 2024-2029 Research Agenda, are intended to help the SMC optimally advance stormwater management practices across southern California.

In December, the SMC’s 18 member agencies reviewed and ranked the panel’s 20 candidate research projects. The four highest-ranked projects, which the SMC will consider pursuing in the 2025-2026 fiscal year, are as follows (in no particular order):

  • Quantifying load reductions from non-structural BMPs (SMC Project 4.2)
  • Exfiltration from sanitary sewage conveyance systems (SMC Project 1.1)
  • Improved estimates of microbial risk associated with stormwater impacts (SMC Project 1.2)
  • Meeting biological expectations in urban streams (SMC Project 2.1)
A 12-member expert advisory panel that was convened by the SMC to develop the SMC’s next five-year research agenda meets in September 2024 at SCCWRP, an SMC member agency. The independent panel developed a list of high-priority stormwater research projects the SMC should consider pursuing to optimally advance stormwater management practices across southern California.

The SMC will fund additional projects from the research agenda as it works through the five-year portfolio.

The SMC also welcomes opportunities for partnerships with non-member agencies and invites external partners to collaborate with the SMC on its research projects.

Since the SMC’s founding in 2001, the SMC has convened an independent expert panel every five years to identify Southern California’s most pressing stormwater research needs and recommend the SMC’s long-term research directions.

Through this cyclical research planning process, the SMC has co-funded a portfolio of more than 30 stormwater research projects valued at $46 million. All projects are regional-scale investigations that no single agency would have the resources to pursue on its own, but that collectively are possible by combining expertise and resources.

Significantly, many of these projects have involved collaborations with partners external to the SMC.

Past SMC projects have informed the development of – and updates to – monitoring programs, guidance and policy documents, 303(d) listings and TMDLs, water quality objectives, and basin plan amendments. In a summer 2024 survey, SMC member agencies reported that all 12 of the SMC projects completed over the past decade have influenced or are expected to influence the development of a management decision or program within one or more of their respective agencies.

For more information about how to get involved in the SMC’s research projects, contact Gerhardt Hubner or Ken Schiff.

SMC Winter 2025 Newsletter
Volume 5, Issue 2

This newsletter is published three times a year by the Southern California Stormwater Monitoring Coalition (SMC). To subscribe to this newsletter, contact [email protected].