Definitions
This page offers various definitions for Low Impact Development (LID) and other terms used to describe the same approaches. The two terms, LID and alternative storm water management systems (ASWMS), are used interchangeably on this website. Some researchers favor ASWMS because it explicitly focuses on storm water, and suggests broader neighborhood scale, regional scale and watershed scale solutions, as well as site specific solutions. LID typically connotes site specific design and primarily small dispersed systems. However, LID is used extensively in the storm water arena, and is a far more common terminology.
The following are a sampling of some of the definitions that professionals and various agencies have advanced on LID and ASWMS.
LID
The low-impact development (LID) approach combines a hydrologically functional site design with pollution prevention measures to compensate for land development impacts on hydrology and water quality.
LID is a comprehensive technology-based approach to managing urban stromwater. Stormwater is managed in small, cost-effective landscape features located on each lot rather than being conveyed and managed in large, costly pond facilities located at the bottom of drainage areas.
-Low-Impact Development Design Strategies, An Integrated Design Approach, Prepared by Prince George’s County, Maryland, Department of Environmental Resources, Programs and Planning Division. January 2000
Low Impact Development (LID) is an innovative stormwater management approach with a basic principle that is modeled after nature: manage rainfall at the source using uniformly distributed decentralized micro-scale controls. LID's goal is to mimic a site's predevelopment hydrology by using design techniques that infiltrate, filter, store, evaporate, and detain runoff close to its source. Techniques are based on the premise that stormwater management should not be seen as stormwater disposal. Instead of conveying and managing / treating stormwater in large, costly end-of-pipe facilities located at the bottom of drainage areas, LID addresses stormwater through small, cost-effective landscape features located at the lot level. These landscape features, known as Integrated Management Practices (IMPs), are the building blocks of LID. Almost all components of the urban environment have the potential to serve as an IMP. This includes not only open space, but also rooftops, streetscapes, parking lots, sidewalks, and medians. LID is a versatile approach that can be applied equally well to new development, urban retrofits, and redevelopment / revitalization projects.
-Low Impact Development Center
Low Impact Development (LID): A sustainable landscaping approach that can be used to replicate or restore natural watershed functions and/or address targeted watershed goals and objectives.
-US EPA
This approach to land development, called Low Impact Development (LID), uses various land planning and design practices and technologies to simultaneously conserve and protect natural resource systems and reduce infrastructure costs. LID still allows land to be developed, but in a cost-effective manner that helps mitigate potential environmental impacts.
-US Department of Housing and Urban Development
LID: The blending of hydrology, civil engineering, landscape architecture, urban planning, ecology, architecture and common sense into a comprehensive systems approach to achieving water runoff, recharge, habitat and quality goals. LID attempts to conserve, mimic and/or restore as much of the natural hydrologic processes as possible.
-Jeff Loux, UC Davis Extension, Center for Water and Land Use
ASWMS
Alternative Storm Water Management Systems is another terminology for a design and planning approach that manages the volume and quality of storm water generated by a site or region locally and in an environmentally sensitive way. It is deemed "alternative'"because it differs from the standard "collect, conduct and dispose" approach often used to manage storm water.
- UC Davis Extension, Center for Water and Land Use
