Water Resources Collections and Archives

San Francisco’s Islais Creek (Figure 1) has been buried in culverts for more than 70 years. It currently conveys the combined sanitary and storm sewer that drains the Southeast corner of the city. This combined sewer overflows into San Francisco Bay several times a year, and into the city streets approximately once every five years. We propose separating the sewer and storm drains, and explore re-opening Islais Creek to carry stormwater runoff to the bay. We delineated the watershed and channel using Arc/Info and GIS. We chose study reaches at the outlets of three subwatersheds, representing different flow conditions, elevations, urban development constraints, and opportunities for restoration. These variations necessitate different channel forms for each reach; we present experimental designs as cross-sections and plan view reaches overlaid onto an aerial photo of the city. We discuss project viability and opportunities.