Date: Wednesday March 5th, 2025
Where: DRBC, 25 Cosey Road, West Trenton, NJ 08628
Cost: Members - Free
Non-Members - $20
This meeting is a hybrid meeting, link to be provided to registrants via email upon registration and prior to the event.
Lunch will be provided for in-person attendees at the beginning of the meeting
Come join us for our annual Water Leadership Forum. This year, Dr. Andrea Welker from TCNJ will present on Quantifying the Hydrologic Characteristics of a Rain Garden.
This talk qualifies for 1 NJ PE continuing education credit.
This meeting also serves as a forum for the past NJ-AWRA presidents to review and provide feedback on NJ-AWRA's activities.
Tentative Schedule:
12:00 pm Lunch and in-person networking
12:30 pm Presentation by Dr. Andrea Welker
1:30 Past Presidents Discussion
2:00 pm Meeting Adjourned
Speaker Bio: Andrea Welker, PhD, PE, ENV SP, F.ASCE, is the Dean of the School of Engineering and a Professor of Civil Engineering at The College of New Jersey (TCNJ). She earned her BS and MS in Civil Engineering from Drexel University, worked at Gannett Fleming in Pittsburgh, PA, and completed her PhD in Civil Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin. A licensed professional engineer in Pennsylvania and an Envision Sustainability Professional, Dr. Welker was promoted to Professor in 2013 and served as Associate Dean for Academic Affairs in the College of Engineering at Villanova University before joining TCNJ as Dean in July 2022. She is deeply involved with the American Society for Engineering Education (ASEE), having held multiple leadership roles and currently serving as the Civil Engineering Division’s liaison to the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) Committee on Education. Additionally, she participates in the Engineering for One Planet (EOP) initiative as a mentor and active network member. As Dean, Dr. Welker has led efforts to streamline the curriculum, establish new mission, vision, and values statements, and implement a strategic plan. She is also the Principal Investigator of an NSF EPIIC grant aimed at expanding TCNJ’s capacity for external partnerships and enhancing internal support structures.
Abstract: Rain gardens, also known as bioinfiltration stormwater management practices, are increasingly being used to control stormwater. Rain gardens control stormwater by promoting evapotranspiration and deep infiltration, e.g. water that reaches the groundwater table. The key characteristics that designers and engineers need to quantify are the infiltration rate of a rain garden and the water budget, including the relative percentage of water that will evapotranspired or deeply infiltrated. Designers and engineers often use spot infiltration tests to determine the infiltration rate of a rain garden. We will discuss three different methods, single-ring, modified Philip-Dunne, and the SATURO, their advantages and disadvantages, and the recommend number of spot tests needed to quantify the overall infiltration rate. The water budget of a rain garden will also be discussed and quantified for a rain garden located in southeastern Pennsylvania.
