New Smart Stormwater Project in Ashville Park Helps Reduce Neighborhood’s Flood Risk

In late summer and early fall of 2016, Virginia Beach was slammed by three back-to-back tropical storms causing unprecedented flooding and exposing the need for better drainage in certain neighborhoods – among them, Ashville Park in the southern part of the City.

To address these issues, Public Works embarked on a capital improvement project to enlarge the capacity of the neighborhood's existing stormwater pond network by enlarging existing ponds and adding new ones. These ponds were then connected it to a “smart” stormwater pumping system.

Given that the Ashville Park community is still under construction, the City worked with the developer to also minimize wetlands impacts, plant new trees and improve water quality to the downstream outfall at nearby Ashville Bridge Creek.

A new sluice gate and weir were also constructed to block water from Back Bay and Ashville Bridge Creek from flowing into Ashville Park’s ponds during flooding southerly wind tides.

With the completion of these improvements, Public Works engineers can now draw down the water level in the stormwater ponds prior to a major storm or other significant flooding event, proactively increasing the storage capacity by 44% to 58% and preemptively mitigating the potential for flooding throughout the neighborhood. In fact, modeling suggests there will be an accompanying decrease in flooding duration in the neighborhood’s Wilshier and Ranier Villages by an average of a few hours during a 10-year storm and nearly a full day during a 100-year storm.

To learn more about other flood mitigation projects currently underway in Virginia Beach, visit virginiabeach.gov/RippleEffect.