Comparing Green and Grey Infrastructure Using Life Cycle Cost and Environmental Impact: A Rain Garden Case Study in Cincinnati,OH
Abstract
Green infrastructure (GI) is quickly gaining ground as a less costly, greener alternative to traditional methods of stormwater management. One popular form of GI is the use of rain gardens to capture and treat stormwater. We used life cycle assessment (LCA) to compare environmental impacts of residential rain gardens constructed in the Shepherd's Creek watershed of Cincinnati,Ohio to those from a typical detain and treat system.LCA is an internationally standardized framework for analyzing the potential environmental performance of a product or service by including all stages in its life cycle, including material extraction, manufacturing, use, and disposal. Complementary to the life cycle environmental impact assessment, the life cycle costing approach was adopted to compare the equivalent annual costs of each of these systems. These analyses were supplemented by modeling alternative scenarios to capture the variability in implementing a GI strategy. Our LCA models suggest rain garden costs and impacts are determined by labor requirement; the traditional alternative's impacts are determined largely by the efficiency of wastewater treatment, while costs are determined by the expense of tunnel construction. Gardens were found to be the favorable option, both financially (~42% cost reduction) and environmentally (62‐98% impact reduction). Wastewater utilities may find significant life cycle cost and environmental impact reductions in implementing a rain garden plan.
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Maintaining, inspecting, and monitoring BMPs is a small but annual cost compared to the large, infrequent costs usually associated with grey infrastructure projects, causing further challenges to Phase II MS4 permittees that may lack manpower in maintenance departments and/or employees dedicated to work on urban stormwater programs.
“Maintaining, inspecting, and monitoring BMPs is a small but annual cost compared to the large, infrequent costs usually associated with grey infrastructure projects (Vineyard et al. 2015;Chini et al. 2017;Miller and Montalto 2019;William et al. 2020), causing further challenges to Phase II MS4 permittees that may lack manpower”
From Phase II MS4 challenges: moving toward effective stormwater management for small municipalities (2022) · cites this paper as Vineyard et al. 2015
Stormwater infrastructure across the US is rapidly aging past its intended lifespan.
“Stormwater infrastructure across the US is rapidly aging past its intended lifespan (Keeley et al. 2013;Hoover and Hopton 2019;Vineyard et al. 2015;Meng and Hsu 2019).”
From Phase II MS4 challenges: moving toward effective stormwater management for small municipalities (2022) · cites this paper as Vineyard et al. 2015
Small, low-cost, widely-distributed, parcel scale projects (i.e., 'source-control') such as vegetated swales, green streets, porous or permeable pavement, can provide stormwater control equivalent to or more effective than large centralized projects when properly sized and located.
“Small, low-cost, widely-distributed, parcel scale projects (i.e.,”
From Phase II MS4 challenges: moving toward effective stormwater management for small municipalities (2022) · cites this paper as Vineyard et al. 2015
Landowners can be important partners in maintenance.
“Landowners can also be important partners in maintenance: rain gardens installed on residential parcels in Cincinnati, Ohio were maintained by the homeowners, allowing the municipality to conduct occasional inspections without having to provide continual maintenance (Vineyard et al. 2015).”
From Phase II MS4 challenges: moving toward effective stormwater management for small municipalities (2022) · cites this paper as Vineyard et al. 2015
Life Cycle Cost and Environmental Impact Analysis showed that using rain gardens in this area was financially and environmentally favorable relative to expanding traditional gray infrastructure, particularly with homeowners conducting the few hours of maintenance per year necessary for each rain garden.
“Regardless, Life Cycle Cost and Environmental Impact Analysis showed that using rain gardens in this area was financially and environmentally favorable relative to expanding traditional gray infrastructure, particularly with homeowners conducting the few hours of maintenance per year necessary for each rain garden (Vineyard et al. 2015).”
From Phase II MS4 challenges: moving toward effective stormwater management for small municipalities (2022) · cites this paper as Vineyard et al. 2015
Cites
Mayer, A. L., Shuster, W. D., Beaulieu, J. J., Hopton, M. E., Rhea, L. K., Roy, A. H., & Thurston, H. W. (2012) · Environmental Practice · doi:10.1017/s1466046611000494 · Cited by 72 · see citing works
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Miah, J. H., Koh, S. C. L., & Stone, D. (2017) · Journal of Cleaner Production · doi:10.1016/j.jclepro.2017.08.187 · Cited by 160 · see citing works
Phase II MS4 challenges: moving toward effective stormwater management for small municipalities
Rieck, L., Carson, C., Hawley, R. J., Heller, M., Paul, M., Scoggins, M., Zimmerman, M., & Smith, R. F. (2022) · Urban Ecosystems · doi:10.1007/s11252-021-01179-3 · Cited by 16 · see citing works
- Authors
- Vineyard, D., Ingwersen, W. W., Hawkins, T. R., Xue, X., Demeke, B., & Shuster, W.
- Affiliations
- Environmental Protection Agency (US)
- Enviance, Inc. Carlsbad California 92008
- Corresponding author
- Vineyard, Donald
- Venue
- JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association
- Publisher
- Wiley
- Published
- 2015-06-23
- Volume
- 51
- Issue
- 5
- Pages
- 1342-1360
- ISSN
- 1093-474X (ISSN-L)
- 1752-1688
- OpenAlex
- W1914748578
- Cited by
- 112
- References
- 1
- Citations by year
- 2026: 4 · 2025: 13 · 2024: 12 · 2023: 11 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 15 · 2020: 10 · 2019: 14 · 2018: 7 · 2017: 6 · 2016: 4
- FWCI
- 4.07
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- JAWRA Journal of the American Water Resources Association (publishedVersion)
- OSTI OAI (U.S. Department of Energy Office of Scientific and Technical Information) (submittedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Department of Energy
- U.S. Environmental Protection Agency
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Urban Stormwater Management Solutions
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Waste Management and Disposal › Wastewater Treatment and Reuse
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Environmental Engineering › Environmental Impact and Sustainability
- Keywords
- green infrastructure, rain gardens, stormwater management, life cycle cost, life cycle assessment, environmental impact, wastewater treatment, sewer tunnels, Cincinnati
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