H. Rooney Malcom's notes are intended as a basis for teaching the elements of urban stormwater design to engineering students and practicing professionals who have a basic understanding of hydraulics and hydrology. As there is considerable local and regional variation in accepted practices, particularly in the determination of system design loadings, it will be necessary for designers to modify the methodology from time to time and place to place. The ideas presented have been distilled over some years by the author and a good many colleagues and students to become comfortable tools to use in routine component selection and preliminary design of more complex systems.

The fundamental process of engineering design is one in which the engineer selects one or more mathematical models to represent a physical system, manipulates the system components to achieve some desired response under loadings of interest, and specifies the system to be constructed in the field. The process is dominated by judgements to be made by designer and reviewer:

-- Is the model valid and appropriate?
-- Are the assumptions inherent in the model justified in the case at hand?
-- Are the design loads prudent?
-- Have the worst cases been identified?
-- Has the system been defined with adequate precision?
-- Can the results be verified?
-- Will the system perform as expected?

This manual, together with the course it supports, explores these issues in the common elements of stormwater management systems.

Intended Audience:

Engineering students and practicing professionals with a basic understanding of hydraulics and hydrology