Understanding Long-Term Stormwater Best Management Practice Maintenance Challenges: Insights from the Virginia Department of Transportation

Best management practices (BMPs) are designed to manage stormwater and reduce pollution, but their effectiveness and compliance with regulatory requirements depend on consistent maintenance. Despite their importance, there is limited research on how stormwater practitioners allocate resources and navigate operational challenges to maintain BMPs under regulatory and budgetary constraints. To address this knowledge gap, this study conducted an open-ended survey of stormwater professionals across eight districts of the Virginia Department of Transportation (VDOT). Paired with a review of 17,874 BMP inspection records from 2020 to 2024, the survey data provided insights into how reported maintenance issues from surveys align with inspection-based observations of BMP conditions, how resource constraints shape maintenance priorities, and which strategies may improve long-term maintenance outcomes. Thematic comparisons between survey responses and inspection data revealed strong alignment for sediment and vegetation concerns but underreporting of erosion and structural issues in narrative responses. The findings also show how resource limitations, such as insufficient staffing, lack of flexible funding mechanisms, and administrative burden, lead districts to make trade-offs when addressing corrective and urgent maintenance tasks. Districts employed a variety of strategies to mitigate these constraints, including severity-based repair prioritization and creative use of roadside or compliance-linked funding. The study further highlights how institutional structures, such as the presence of a dedicated stormwater manager or the design of contractor agreements, significantly influence maintenance outcomes. Enhancements to VDOT’s geospatial BMP database are proposed as a way to centralize the system to streamline task bundling, prioritize repairs, and enhance cross-district coordination. By analyzing district-level adaptations, this study highlights practical approaches for maintaining stormwater BMPs despite limited resources.