G. Williams
Good Harbour Laboratories,
Canada
Keywords: stormwater, performance
Summary:
Defining performance objectives for innovative stormwater technologies and verifying their performance helps municipalities, utilities and other water sector stakeholders make informed choices, and at the same time benefits technology companies seeking market acceptance of their innovative solutions. Recognizing that an innovative technology may not have a track record of performance, it is reasonable to assume that, in the absence of a performance track record, the deployment of effective innovative infrastructure solutions would benefit from comprehensive approaches that incorporate evidence-based performance benchmarking and verification. VerifiGlobal and Good Harbour Laboratories are collaborating on performance benchmarking, testing and verification of stormwater technologies, following the requirements of the ISO 14034 ETV standard. A key challenge is generating the type and quality of data that decision makers need when evaluating and selecting innovative stormwater treatment technologies. This includes how the results of performance testing and verification are reported and interpreted by stormwater technology end users and whether or not these technologies comply with water quality objectives. Through this collaboration, important lessons are being learned regarding the technical and market challenges for acceptance, adoption and use of innovative stormwater technologies, as well as the importance of reliable measurement, analysis and feedback.