Project Background and Purpose:

• Under contract with the Southwest Florida Water Management District, SAI and Jones Edmunds have combined efforts to perform a watershed management program (WMP) for the Braden River watershed located in Manatee and Sarasota Counties.

• The three elements of the WMP project that are being performed by the SAI/Jones Edmunds Team include: Topographic Information, Watershed Evaluation, and a Watershed Management Plan.

 

 

Stormwater Modeling / Investigation:

• Comprehensive stormwater modeling of the 59 square mile watershed is being conducted using the FEMA approved ICPR program.

• The watershed is highly urbanized with significant stormwater treatment including extensive networks of interconnected ponds.

• The project has involved the review of hundreds of reports, previous studies, permits, and over 700 construction plan/record drawing sets.

• The model will include over 2,000 drainage sub-basins and nodes.

• Field reconnaissance and secondary survey of hydraulic structures throughout the watershed has been conducted using survey-grade RTK-GPS and ArcPad GIS.

• Custom tools are then utilized to import massive amounts of data from the geodatabases into the hydrodynamic model. This approach results in high quality model data while significantly streamlining the development of the model and minimizing the amount of conventional survey required.

• Model calibration and validation will be conducted using Doppler radar rainfall data from 4 separate storms.

• A surface water resource assessment inventory and approach has been prepared.

• A significant amount of stream, water quality, and climatic data has been collected.

• Modeling approaches (including continuous simulation analysis) have been developed for both water quantity and water quality resource assessments.