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Low Impact Development in Coastal South Carolina: A Planning and Design Guide

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Known for its beautiful beaches and marshlands, coastal South Carolina has seen a 20 percent population increase over the past decades, which in turn has led to an increase in land covered by impervious surfaces such as roads and parking lots. This has led to higher volumes of stormwater runoff, which heightens flood risk and degrades water quality. Climate change will only make this problem worse. To address these challenges, South Carolina decision-makers will need locally relevant information and guidance to help them implement innovative low impact development (LID) techniques that mimic natural landscapes and hydrologic processes. The ACE Basin and North Inlet-Winyah Bay Reserves collaborated with stakeholders and partners on a 2012 Collaborative Research project to address the barriers that keep communities from embracing this approach.

This guide, developed by the project team, provides local decision-makers with the knowledge and resources to apply LID practices on the community, neighborhood, and site scale. It removes barriers to LID implementation by providing engineering tools, planning guidance, and case study examples that are relevant to the South Carolina coastal zone.