Overall Rating Gold
Overall Score 69.67
Liaison Julie Newman
Submission Date Sept. 30, 2021

STARS v2.2

Massachusetts Institute of Technology
IN-36: Stormwater Modeling

Status Score Responsible Party
Complete 0.50 / 0.50 MIT Office of Sustainability
Director
Office of Sustainability
"---" indicates that no data was submitted for this field

A brief description of the methodology/tool used to calculate the percentile local or regional rainfall events for which the institution manages runoff on-site using LID practices and green infrastructure:

MIT modelled water quality and water quantity needs for both current and future climate conditions at the campus and city scales. The model has been integrated and coordinated with the MIT Sustainable Stormwater and Landscape Ecology planning process, which includes a Phase 1 report, completed in December 2017. Furthermore, MIT's stormwater modelling integrates precipitation-driven flood models for city streets adjacent to the MIT campus as modelled in partnership with the City of Cambridge.

The MIT Climate Resiliency Dashboard is an informational tool enabling the MIT community to understand risk to the Cambridge campus from flooding in today’s climate and a future changed climate. This dashboard seeks to translate the science of these climate risks into visual maps for use in operational and strategic decision-making about campus-wide planning, capital renewal, new capital projects, and community preparedness. This Dashboard has been created using the latest climate impact models (in partnership with the MIT Center for Global Change Science) and is harmonized and regularly updated with the City of Cambridge's climate change flood model.

Findings from the modelling directly inform design of campus projects, such as the newly opened North Corridor, as well as numerous projects currently in construction, which include stormwater best management practices for quality and quantity control, recommended through the planning process. Design projects for new construction and major renovation are required to consider how the proposed project meets the future (2070) 1% or 100-year precipitation-driven flood risk, based in the campus flood risk model. This process now integrates the climate resiliency dashboard and a flood risk modeller in the design process, providing design teams with analysis of how the proposed design performs once it is integrated within the 2070 1% and 10% scenarios of the campus flood risk model.

Learn more about the dashboard in a recent MIT News article:
https://news.mit.edu/2021/visualizing-climate-resilient-mit-campus-dashboard-0311

Learn more about how MIT is working with the City to model current and future climate risks:
https://spectrum.mit.edu/spring-2021/campus-test-bed/

For more information on the stormwater and landscape ecology plan, see:
https://sustainability.mit.edu/stormwater-management-and-landscape-ecology-plan


Percentile of local or regional rainfall events for which the institution manages runoff on-site using LID practices and green infrastructure:
90th

Website URL where information about the stormwater modeling is available:
Additional documentation to support the submission:
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Data source(s) and notes about the submission:

Information is drawn from MIT's Sustainable Stormwater and Landscape Ecology Plan as well as MIT's Climate Resiliency Planning process.

More information can be found here:
https://sustainability.mit.edu/stormwater-management-and-landscape-ecology-plan
https://sustainability.mit.edu/climate-resiliency

Published document about MIT preliminary flood vulnerability modeling is available here:
https://globalchange.mit.edu/publication/16850


Information is drawn from MIT's Sustainable Stormwater and Landscape Ecology Plan as well as MIT's Climate Resiliency Planning process.

More information can be found here:
https://sustainability.mit.edu/stormwater-management-and-landscape-ecology-plan
https://sustainability.mit.edu/climate-resiliency

Published document about MIT preliminary flood vulnerability modeling is available here:
https://globalchange.mit.edu/publication/16850

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