Rhonda Waller has two rain barrels behind her house in the Urbana-Perry Park neighborhood of Brunswick. The stormwater runoff they collect waters her yard and outdoor plants.

She got a third one at a recent rain barrel and rain garden workshop, and plans to use that one to provide water to a drip irrigation system for her rain garden, which stretches across the front of her one-story ranch house.

The rain garden, a mix of native plants resistant to heat and drought, is over a trench layered with rocks, sandy soil and mulch to filter any pollutants from the rainwater before it slowly seeps into the ground.

William Kitts, a resident in the Urbana-Perry Park neighborhood, tends to his rain garden.

Waller and five of her neighbors installed rain gardens as part of the Coastal Georgia Rain Garden program, created by University of Georgia Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant. Collectively, the Urbana-Perry Park rain gardens infiltrate more than 200,000 gallons of stormwater annually.

“We did it as a community, we helped each other,” Waller said. “We have to do something.”

Since 2016, stormwater management experts from UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant have been working with coastal communities to address challenges caused by heavy rain events, exceptionally high tides and sea level rise. While large scale projects, such as replacing underground drainage systems with larger pipes, require extensive engineering and substantial funding, green infrastructure projects can be done “in-house” with city work crews, in partnership with UGA.

The city’s “Rethinking Runoff” plan, produced in 2022 by Jessica Brown, stormwater specialist with UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant, introduced opportunities for Brunswick to reduce flooding and improve water quality using green infrastructure, such as bioretention cells, rain gardens, permeable pavements, rain barrels, and cisterns.

Brown shared this concept of green infrastructure feasibility planning with all of Georgia’s coastal communities. Brunswick was among the first to respond.

Severe storms have become more frequent in recent years, and sea level rise is causing water from the rivers and marshes surrounding much of Brunswick to spill over into the city during high tide.

“When it starts to rain we know we have to go close roads,” said Garrow Alberson, Brunswick’s city engineer and public works director.

“We’re seeing streets flooding at high tide that weren’t flooding five to six years ago.”

The 2018 Stormwater Master Plan for the city of Brunswick included 15 priority projects at an estimated cost of $18.4 million. The projects required large scale construction, including replacing smaller drainage pipes that can no longer accommodate the volume of water, rerouting key roadways that regularly flood or installing tide control devices in areas affected by storm surge.

Those projects can take significant time to complete. The “Rethinking Runoff” projects can be done faster, for less money and can “work to take the demand off these systems,” Alberson said.

Stormwater specialists go over plans for bioretention installation in Brunswick, GA

Garrow Alberson (left) talks with Jessica Brown (second from right) and City of Brunswick Public Works crew about plans for a green infrastructure project.

Working with consultants contracted by the city of Brunswick, Brown used online data to determine the soil suitability for infiltration in vulnerable areas, and looked at GIS data to calculate the amount of stormwater runoff from impervious ground cover. Through the analysis, they identified 28 sites suitable for green infrastructure improvements.

A group plants native vegetation in a bioretention cell in Brunswick, GA

Students in a landscaping course through the Job Corps Center in Brunswick assist with planting the bioretention cell at Howard Coffin Park.

An earlier pilot project proved the effectiveness of green infrastructure. Brown worked with the city in 2018, long before the “Rethinking Runoff” plan, to install a bioretention cell at Howard Coffin Park. Two years later, Brown secured funding for a monitoring project adding equipment, wells and rain gauges, that show the bioretention cell is doing what it’s supposed to. Between August 2020 and December 2021, 83.6% of the runoff from the surrounding area was infiltrated by the cell.

The city is now working to implement green infrastructure projects at other sites identified in Brown’s “Rethinking Runoff” plan, including installing permeable pavement for parking at Goodyear Park, which previously had no dedicated parking; and replacing a concrete parking area with permeable material at Liberty Ship Park, next to the Sidney Lanier Bridge. The city plans to install two bioretention cells at Liberty Ship Park around existing storm drains. Also in the works is a plan to install permeable pavement at the vehicle parking lot next to Fire Station 1 downtown.

Other Stormwater Resources

Brown has worked with other partners to develop coast-wide resources.

Coastal Georgia LID Inventory
A Low Impact Development (LID) inventory was developed in collaboration with Georgia DNR. It features LID practices in Georgia’s 11 coastal counties.

Stormwater Operation, Inspection and Maintenance Tools
In collaboration with Goodwyn, Mills and Cawood, Brown created photo-based resources for inspectors and maintenance staff to improve long-term function of green infrastructure practices.

UGA Marine Extension and Georgia Sea Grant has been promoting the success of the demonstration projects as well as other stormwater initiatives, like the rain garden program, to spread awareness about the importance of green infrastructure. Brown partners with private sector, nonprofit, and state agencies to host workshops, and stays connected to the city’s Neighborhood Planning Assemblies. She attends local, statewide and even national meetings to share efforts underway on the Georgia coast to address stormwater challenges.

The green infrastructure projects are a good way to educate people about stormwater mitigation because they can see examples in their communities, and understand how they work, Brown said. Larger projects, like increasing the capacity of storm drains, are more difficult to understand.

“It’s hard to comprehend because all the pipe is underground,” she said.

Interest from Brunswick residents in green infrastructure has increased over the years. The topic has gained the attention of local civic, youth, and faith-based groups, such as Coastal Outreach Soccer, wanting to get involved.

Brown is also working with other departments at UGA. Earlier this year, she collaborated with UGA Professor Qiong Wang to engage landscape architecture students at the College of Environment and Design in developing green infrastructure feasibility plans for the city of Brunswick as part of their coursework. These students gain valuable skills and learn to incorporate stormwater management into future projects throughout Georgia.

State and federal grants fund many of the stormwater management projects along the Georgia coast, including the ones Brown has partnered with the city of Brunswick to implement.

“This is an unprecedented time for us,” said Brown, who has worked in water management for 15 years. “There is more federal money available than ever before. It’s great to see these dollars at work, reducing the burden for communities like Brunswick.”