Aside from the technical side of building a home such as plan, materials needed and budget range, one of the most important things to keep in mind is in managing stormwater. Perhaps, you get caught in the excitement of finally owning your home that you forgot that there is the environment that you need to consider.

What are stormwater? It is the water that comes from a heavy rainfall that failed to soak into the ground. The water flows from the roofs, paved locations and sloped landscape. It flows through different places that it can collect many pollutants such as sediment, pesticides, oils, garbage, litter, weeds and many more. This can contaminate other bodies of water that are otherwise pure. This poses a great threat not only for you and your family but for the environment as well.

Environmental issues are present when building houses. The presence of certain pollutants such as sediment and chemicals cannot be avoided in any way. Therefore, it is important that we bear this in mind before we build our homes at certain sites. It would be beneficial to know how efficient the water systems are in the proposed area.

In at least the last one hundred years, there have been global changes in temperature with increased temperature, shrinking arctic and the prediction is an increase in temperature globally in this century. This change will not effect the entire world equally as some will benefit from the change while others will suffer economically. There is at least one faction that feels that the climate change will affect human life and wildlife adversely with the demise of many species.

The effects of global warming will not be restricted to that of the arctic and its shrinkage, but will also affect the weather causing severe rain storms in parts of the world and drought in other parts of the world. The oceans pH level will drop considerably by 2011 making the oceans more acidic and with a loss of oxygen. There has been some pH level drop in the ocean since the industrial revolution but the predictions tell us there is more to come.

When it rains, the oil, pesticides, fertilizers and detergents along with other pollutants that get washed from driveways, streets, and highways go directly to the natural waterways. This water is called stormwater runoff. When they reach waterways, they will pollute the water making surface water contaminated for human consumption as well as harmful and deadly to the aquatic lives breeding in the rivers, streams and lakes. Aside from that, high volumes of stormwater create floods that hamper people’s way of living.

Many stormwater best management practices were created to get rid of these pollutants from runoffs before they pollute waterways and groundwater sources. Stormwater management can be structural, vegetative or managerial. By controlling the source of stormwater, harmful substances will be minimized to prevent these pollutants in contaminating the waters.