Impact of Vegetation Management on Vegetated Roadsides and Their Performance as a Low-Impact-Development Practice for Linear Transportation Infrastructure

Water quality improvement, constituent mass transport mitigation, and the hydraulic performance of vegetated roadsides were evaluated over 16 storm events for two vegetated roadside strips along Lorton Road in Fairfax County, Virginia. Automated, flow-weighted sampling practices were employed to develop composite samples and event mean concentrations representative of an entire storm event. Lorton Road and two vegetated roadside strips were monitored for flow rate and flow volume to determine hydraulic performance. Collected samples were analyzed for 13 water quality constituents: total suspended solids, total nitrogen, nitrates, phosphate, oil and grease, chemical oxygen demand, total coliform bacteria, Escherichia coli, cadmium, chromium, copper, lead, and zinc. Varying vegetation management practices were employed at each vegetated strip to determine the impact of vegetation management on vegetated roadside performance. The managed and unmanaged vegetated strips achieved a mean peak flow reduction of 7...