Goose Creek Watershed Management Plan Version - Charlotte ...

Goose Creek Watershed Management Plan Version 1...………………...October 31, 2009
SECTION 4. WATERSHED ASSESSMENT
4.1 Upland Characterization
In order to prioritize areas of the Goose Creek Watershed, an upland characterization
methodology was developed based upon work completed by Tetra Tech, Inc. (2004) for
the Post Construction Ordinance Stakeholder Group. The resulting prioritization will be
used to guide property acquisition for installation of water quality BMPs and to focus
efforts on voluntary retrofitting of existing upland sources of pollution.
The upland characterization was completed through an evaluation of existing levels of
pollutant loading, impervious cover and buffer impacts. Specifically, the indicators used
were Total Phosphorus (TP), Total Nitrogen (TN), Total Suspended Sediment (TSS),
Fecal Coliform, ammonia, Copper and percent of the stream buffer currently un-forested.
The information presented in this Section of the Watershed Management Plan deals only
with existing sources of pollution in the Goose Creek Watershed. For the purpose of this
document, it was assumed that future sources of pollution will be attenuated through
implementation of the Site Specific Management Plan, which is presented in Section
2.3.3.
4.1.1 Methodology
The basis for the upland characterization presented herein is an updated existing land-use
dataset developed by Tetra Tech Inc. (2004). The land-use data set was developed
through interpretation of a combination of parcel information, aerial photographs, and
tree canopy data. The process is more thoroughly described in Tetra Tech Inc. (2004).
Development in the watershed that has occurred since 2004 was manually entered into
the data set. The land-use data set provides a distribution and classification of all landuses
in the Goose Creek Watershed. The land-use categories, along with abbreviations
and typical impervious percentages seen in the Goose Creek watershed are presented in
Table 12.
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