SMC develops stormwater research priorities for next five years

The Southern California Stormwater Monitoring Coalition (SMC) has launched a research planning process to establish its strategic directions over the next five years, beginning with inviting an expert advisory panel to recommend projects the regional research consortium should consider pursuing to advance stormwater management practices across Southern California.

The SMC’s 2024-2029 research planning cycle, which began in September with a three-day expert panel workshop hosted by SCCWRP, already has resulted in the development of a set of 20 high-priority candidate research projects. The panel described the projects verbally to the SMC on the final day of the workshop, and will codify the projects in the coming weeks as the SMC’s published 2024-2029 Research Agenda.

In December, the SMC’s 18 member agencies, including SCCWRP, are expected to begin reviewing and ranking the projects, then greenlighting their top-priority consensus picks starting in the 2025-2026 fiscal year.

The SMC is a partnership of 18 stormwater management agencies spanning the regulated and regulatory sectors that work collaboratively to develop solutions to regional challenges in stormwater management.

The 20 candidate research projects are organized into six thematic areas: traditional and emerging contaminants; stream biology; data mining, new technology and communications; stormwater best management practices (BMPs); watershed and groundwater modeling; and economics and financing.

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.

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.

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.

As of the end of the SMC’s 2019-2024 research planning cycle in June, the SMC had completed its four highest-priority projects and initiated four others, all of which are nearing completion. The four completed 2019-2024 projects – three of which were led by SCCWRP – are:

To develop the 2024-2029 Research Agenda, the SMC brought together nine technical experts spanning a range of relevant science and engineering disciplines, plus one representative each from a water-quality regulatory agency, a stormwater regulated agency, and an environmental advocacy organization.

After hearing testimonies from SMC member agencies about their research needs and priorities at the expert panel workshop, panelists developed 60 initial project concepts before narrowing their list to the 20 priority projects. The panel also identified opportunities where projects can build on existing work and achieve synergies.

The SMC will use the Research Agenda over the next five years as a roadmap that guides decision-making about which projects to prioritize and fund.

Once finalized, the SMC’s 2024-2029 Research Agenda will be published to the SMC’s website, likely in December.

For more information, contact Ken Schiff.