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Structural stormwater Best Management Practices

This page is currently undergoing revision.

A structural stormwater Best Management Practice (BMP) is defined in the MS4 General permit as "a stationary and permanent BMP that is designed, constructed and operated to prevent or reduce the discharge of pollutants in stormwater".

Image showing categorization of best management practices as construction stormwater, pretreatment, structural, or non-structural BMPs

Links to structural stormwater best management practices

  1. Green roofs
  2. Permeable pavement
  3. Trees
  4. Bioretention
    1. Rain garden: see Bioretention
  5. Infiltration (infiltration trench, basin, dry well, and underground infiltration)
  6. Filtration
    1. Dry swale (Grass swale)
    2. Wet swale (wetland channel)
    3. High-gradient stormwater step-pool swale
    4. Sand filters
  7. Iron enhanced sand filter (Minnesota Filter)
  8. Stormwater ponds
  9. Stormwater wetlands
  10. Manufactured treatment devices
  11. Pretreatment practices
    1. Vegetated filter strips
    2. Pretreatment - Hydrodynamic separation devices
    3. Pretreatment - Screening and straining devices, including forebays
    4. Pretreatment - Above ground and below grade storage and settling devices
    5. Pretreatment - Filtration devices and practices
    6. Pretreatment - Other pretreatment water quality devices and practices
  12. Chemical treatment
photo illustrating a watershed scale treatment train approach using a multi-BMP approach to managing the quantity and quality of stormwater runoff.

In a watershed scale stormwater management approach, structural BMPs are used for on-site and regional treatment and after prevention and source control BMPs have been employed. Source:CDM Smith.
  • Examples of structural BMPs.

  • photo of a bioretention BMP

    Bioretention (rain garden)

  • photo illustrating an example of pervious concrete

    Permeable pavement

  • image of target center green roof, Minneapolis, MN

    Green roof (Image Courtesy of The Kestrel Design Group, Inc.)

  • photo of an iron ehanced sand filter basin

    Iron enhanced sand filter (Photo courtesy of Barr Engineering)

  • Photo of vegetated swale city of Wayzata

    Vegetated swale

  • image of filter strip

    Vegetated filter strip. Photo courtesy of Alisha Goldstein, U.S. EPA.

  • image of Preserver pretreatment device

    Pretreatment Manhole Sump [Ramsey Conservation District, 2017].