Insights into the Pollutant Removal Performance of Stormwater Green Infrastructures: A Case Study of Detention Basins and Retention Ponds

The quality of water has deteriorated due to urbanization and the occurrence of urban stormwater runoff. To solve this problem, this study investigated the pollutant reduction effects from the geometric and hydrological factors of green infrastructures (GIs) to more accurately design GI models, and evaluated the factors that are required for such a design. Among several GIs, detention basins and retention ponds were evaluated. This study chose the inflow, outflow, total suspended solids (TSS), total phosphorus (TP), watershed area, GI area (bottom area in detention basins and permanent pool surface area in retention ponds), and GI volume (in both detention basins and retention ponds) for analysis and applied both ordinary least squares (OLS) regression and multiple linear regression (MLR). The geometric factors do not vary within each GI, but there may be a bias due to the number of stormwater events. To solve this problem, three methods that involved randomly extracting data with a certain range and excluding outliers were applied to the models. The accuracies of these OLS and MLR models were analyzed through the percentage bias (PBIAS), Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE), and RMSE-observations standard deviation ratio (RSR). The results of this study suggest that models which consider the influent concentration combined with the hydrological and GI geometric parameters have better correlations than models that consider only a single parameter.

Impact of Green Stormwater Infrastructure Age and Type on Water Quality

Green stormwater infrastructure (GSI) has become increasingly common to mitigate urban stormwater runoff. However, there is limited research on the impact of age and type of GSI. This study evaluated nutrient and metals concentrations in the soil water of five different GSI systems located at the University of Portland in Portland, Oregon. The GSI systems included a bioretention curb extension (part of Portland’s Green Street project), a bioretention basin, a bioretention planter, an infiltration basin, and a bioswale ranging in age from 2 to 11 years. Samples were taken from each system during rain events over a 10-month period and analyzed for copper (Cu), zinc (Zn), phosphate (PO43−), and total phosphorus (TP). Copper and zinc concentrations were found to be impacted by GSI age, with lower concentrations in older systems. The same trend was not found with PO43− and TP, where almost all GSI systems had soil water concentrations much higher than average stormwater concentrations. Age likely played a role in phosphorus soil water concentrations, but other factors such as sources had a stronger influence. Phosphorus is likely coming from the compost in the soil mix in addition to other sources in runoff. This study shows that GSI systems can be effective for copper and zinc, but changes to the soil mix design are needed to reduce high levels of PO43− and TP in soil water.

Using Multiple Isotopes to Identify Sources and Transports of Nitrate in Urban Residential Stormwater Runoff

Increased nitrogen (N) from urban stormwater runoff aggravates the deterioration of aquatic ecosystems as urbanisation develops. In this study, the sources and transport of nitrate (NO3−) in urban stormwater runoff were investigated by analysing different forms of N, water isotopes (δD-H2O and δ18O-H2O), and NO3− isotopes (δ15N-NO3− and δ18O-NO3−) in urban stormwater runoff in a residential area in Hangzhou, China. The results showed that the concentrations of total N and nitrate N in road runoff were higher than those in roof runoff. Moreover, high concentrations of dissolved organic N and particulate N in road runoff led to significantly different TN concentrations in road runoff (mean: 3.76 mg/L) and roof runoff (mean: 1.23 mg/L). The high δ18O-NO3− values (mean: 60 ± 13.1‰) indicated that atmospheric deposition was the predominant NO3− source in roof runoff, as confirmed by the Bayesian isotope mixing model (SIAR model), contributing 83.6–97.8% to NO3−. The SIAR model results demonstrated that atmospheric deposition (34.2–91.9%) and chemical fertilisers (6.27–54.3%) were the main NO3− sources for the road runoff. The proportional contributions from soil and organic N were smaller than other sources in both the road runoff and roof runoff. For the initial period, the NO3− contributions from atmospheric deposition and chemical fertilisers were higher and lower, respectively, than those in the middle and late periods in road runoff during storm events 3 and 4, while an opposite trend of road runoff in storm event 7 highlighted the influence of short antecedent dry weather period. It was suggested that reducing impervious areas and more effective management of fertiliser application in urban green land areas were essential to minimize the presence of N in urban aquatic ecosystems.

Assessing the TSS Removal Efficiency of Decentralized Stormwater Treatment Systems by Long-Term In-Situ Monitoring

Decentralized treatment of stormwater runoff from heavily polluted surface can be a good solution for effective source control. Decentralized stormwater treatment systems (DS) and test procedures to monitor their performance, have been developed in recent years. At present in Germany, only lab-based tests are officially established to determine the removal efficiency of Total Suspended Solids (TSS), and in situ monitoring is still lacking. Furthermore, the fine fraction of TSS with particle sizes less than 63 µm (TSS63) have been established as a new design parameter in Germany, because of their substitute characteristics of adsorbing pollutant substances. For research and evaluation purposes continuous data of urban stormwater runoff quantity and quality at the in- and outflow of two different DS at two different sites were collected. Turbidity is used as a surrogate for TSS. Continuous turbidity data and time proportional sampling served to obtain (i) regression coefficients and (ii) to determine the TSS removal efficiency of DS. For a wide range of events the total removal efficiency of DS1 was 29% for TSS and 19% for TSS63 and for DS2 19% for TSS and 16% for TSS63. An event-based data analysis revealed a high variability of the efficiencies and its uncertainties. Moreover, outwash of still suspended or remobilization of already deposited material was observed at individual events. At both sites TSS63 dominates urban stormwater runoff as indicated by the mean ratios of TSS63 to TSS of 0.78 at the inflows and 0.89 at the outflows of both DS. A significant shift of TSS63 ratio from inflow to outflow demonstrates that TSS63 particles were removed less efficiently than coarser particles by DS1, for DS2 data was too heterogeny. It clarifies that common sedimentation methods can only contribute to a small extent to the reduction of solid emissions if the stormwater runoff contains mainly fine-particle solids. The findings suggest that treatment of urban stormwater runoff with high TSS63 pollution requires additional techniques such as a proper filtering to retain fine particles more effective.