Municipalities Using the MPD

Kansas City Water began using the MPD Infiltrometer in the fall of 2021 to baseline the hydraulic conductivity of each of their infiltration assets. Going forward, assets are tested twice per year for 5 years to evaluate any changes and understand causes for those changes. Kansas City is using the MPD Infiltrometer alongside the Double-Ring Infiltrometer (DRI) on some sites to compare results. Overall, they have reported the results from the two methods are very comparable. They created a MPD staff training video which can be viewed here: Kansas City, MO - MPD Training Video

The City of Omaha used two MPD Infiltrometer triple kits to conduct a multi-year study of the city's infiltration basins and rain gardens. Since 2016 they have conducted over 1,000 tests. A link to their resulting research paper below. City of Omaha Research Paper (PDF) Abstract Bioretention systems and rain gardens are an effective measure for mitigating the effects of stormwater runoff in urban environments. Scheduled maintenance and continuous monitoring efforts are necessary to ensure these systems are performing properly. Additionally, measuring the hydraulic characteristics of these systems provides adequate information to determine their infiltration capacity and overall efficiency. A Modified Philip?Dunne (MPD) infiltrometer was used to estimate infiltration rates via saturated hydraulic conductivity (Ksat) measurements for rain gardens, bioretention systems, and turf lawns. A total of 112 samples were collected from nine sites in Omaha, Nebraska to assess the performance of both rain gardens and bioretention systems in comparison with adjacent turf areas. The mean Ksat values for the rain gardens and bioretention systems sampled ranged from 4.01 to 76.46 in/hr. Across all survey sites, average measurements of saturated hydraulic conductivity in rain gardens (55.31 in/hr) and bioretention systems (23.00 in/hr) were significantly higher than those acquired over adjacent turf grasses (2.53 in/hr).

Colorado DOT has standardized the MPD Infiltrometer testing procedures for design & maintenance of stormwater management practices and has used the MPD to test more than 500 swales as part of their ongoing compliance inspection project.

Springfield is using the MPD to test proposed locations for new rain gardens and will expand expand to testing existing rain gardens as their group grows. The end goal is to track the effectiveness of their infiltration practices over time.

This city on the western tip of Lake Superior is using their MPD Infiltrometer to test city owned infiltration practices with the goal of establishing baselines and monitoring effectiveness over time.

This large urban & suburban district manages hundreds of rain gardens and infiltration assets in the greater Chicago area. They are using the MPD Infiltrometer to test these assets to better understand any performance issues and maintenance needs for capital improvement planning.