Form-based solutions for watershed protection: a case study of the Jordan Lake nutrient strategy in North Carolina
Creators: name: Berg, Hannah Elizabeth
Publisher: name: The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill University Libraries
Year: 2009

description: In recent years water shortages, frequent flood events, and alarming levels of nutrient content in North Carolina have brought attention to the declining state of surface water bodies (Water Resources Research Institute, 2009). The United States Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) reports the latest tally of impaired waters in North Carolina is now over 900, only 125 of which are monitored by a total maximum daily load (TMDL) (EPA, 2009). The majority of these impaired lakes, reservoirs, streams, and rivers are found in urbanized areas. Research linking urbanization and the conversion of land to development with increased levels of impervious surface within watersheds, leading to exacerbated runoff of nutrients, sediments and other contaminants into water bodies help to explain this pattern (National Research Council, 2008). Despite an array of policies at the federal and state level aimed at regulating stormwater discharges, technological and engineered solutions enforced by local governments fall short of meeting water quality standards (Albrecht, 2005). Although stormwater management is a field traditionally dominated by engineering, land use planning strategies to direct the location, pace, and amount of urban development are often overlooked as critical first steps to improving water quality (Claytor, 2000). Yet the implications of land use planning and development regulations are significant. As a case study, this research explores the potential for urbanizing communities within the Jordan Lake Watershed to work toward achieving water quality standards through a form-based regulatory approach. The Jordan Lake Nutrient Strategy (also referred to as the Jordan Rules) represents the latest effort by the North Carolina Division of Water Quality (DWQ) to address the state's growing number of nutrient impaired waters by mandating local governments comply with nutrient-load reductions (lbs. /yr.). Several rules outlined in the Jordan Nutrient Strategy are progressively aimed at reducing polluted runoff from many of the state's most urbanized and rapidly growing areas. These unprecedented mandates make this strategy the most rigorous and far-reaching attempt to restore water quality in North Carolina, and, arguably, the United States. Absent, however, from the Jordan Rules is an emphasis on the role land use planning and zoning code reform should have in limiting future nutrient runoff. Through an in-depth program analysis and a series of interviews, this study explores form-based codes as a viable regulatory mechanism to reduce negative impacts of development on water quality in the Jordan Lake Watershed. It does so by taking into consideration the legal feasibility of enforcing form-based codes, the existing regulatory framework, regional and local barriers and opportunities, and implementation considerations. While the findings of the study will be most directly relevant to communities of the Jordan Lake Watershed, the implications of exploring form-based codes as a method of limiting polluted runoff could have significance throughout the county.