Stormwater Utility Vegetation Management Plan
Purpose
The purpose of the City of Madison's Stormwater Vegetation Management Plan (SVMP) is to create a framework for vegetation management practices and goals. It identifies systemwide goals and strategies within existing resources to provide a vegetation management framework. This plan also identifies future opportunities to ensure a resilient stormwater system responsive to increasing environmental pressures. The SWU maintains approximately 1,500 acres of stormwater utility dedicated property.
The City of Madison Stormwater Utility (SWU), a part of the Engineering Division, includes approximately 1,500 acres of land dedicated for stormwater management. The SWU is responsible for managing the vegetation on this land as part of the City's connected stormwater infrastructure. This infrastructure is crucial to reducing flooding, ensuring public safety, improving water quality and recharging groundwater. It also supports multiple ecosystem services that provide the foundation for a green and resilient city.
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Flood and Storm Impacts
A primary function of the SWU is to manage vegetation within watersheds to reduce flood impacts. This includes reducing flooding to property, structures, streets and emergency access, as well as increasing infiltration to reduce downstream flooding and impacts to water quality.
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Water Quality
Nutrient runoff through soil loss is the leading contributor to decreased water quality. Within Dane County, phosphorous runoff from agricultural land is the primary contributor to nutrient runoff. Additional contributors to runoff include pollution contributions through sediment loss within ponds and greenways.
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Healthy Ecosystems and Habitat
Healthy biodiverse ecosystems play an important role in providing multiple ecosystem services that mitigate climate impacts. The value of healthy native ecosystems was identified through both the public engagement process and in the responses from the volunteer experts. Invasive plant management is a key component for maintaining a healthy biodiverse native ecosystem.
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Vegetation Management and Climate Chage
The climate and environmental challenges we face today are complex. There is not one simple solution to address the multifaceted and often-
conflicting priorities related to increasing climate impacts. However, vegetation plays an important role in many of these issues.
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Urban Canopy
Urban canopy is an integral function of a citywide approach to climate change impacts. This includes the increasing stresses on oak trees, the relationship to urban canopy and climate change, and larger city initiatives on urban canopy issues. Management of the larger urban forest is looked at holistically and recommendations are included in the Urban Forestry Task Force Report, and city reinforced in the City of Madison Sustainability Plan.
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Equitable Levels of Service
Citywide vegetation management includes a minimum level of service for each location based on the vegetation management tiers. This system prioritizes invasive species management based on existing biodiversity and available resources while gradually improving areas of lower biodiversity. In 2024, the SWU implemented GIS-centric asset management software Cityworks® to better organize and understand levels of service across the city, as well as to monitor and inventory native and invasive species, and implement early detection and rapid response for invasive species.
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Inventory, Assessment and Monitoring
Inventorying, assessment, and monitoring stormwater utility vegetation is a critical management tool to better understand and address climate change impacts.Climate change impacts of warmer winters, extreme weather events, summer droughts, and longer growing season are stressing forest ecosystems, increasing the risk of outbreaks of new pests and disease" (Wisconsin Initiative on Climate Change Impacts, 2021).
