Evaluation and Optimization of Low Impact Development Designs for Sustainable Stormwater Management in a Changing Climate

The increasing intensity and frequency of extreme storms pose a growing challenge to stormwater management in highly urbanized areas. Without an adequate and appropriate stormwater system, the storms and associated floods will continue to cause significant damage to infrastructure and loss of life. Low Impact Development (LID) has become an emerging alternative to the traditional stormwater system for stormwater management. This study evaluates and optimizes applications of different combinations of LIDs to minimize flows from a catchment under past and future storm conditions. The Storm Water Management Model (SWMM), forced by observed and downscaled precipitation from Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 6 (CMIP6), was used to simulate the runoff and apply the LIDs in the Renton City, WA. The final results show that the performance of LIDs in reducing total runoff volume varies with the types and combinations of LIDs utilized. A 30% to 75% runoff reduction was achieved for the past and future 50 year and 100 year storms. The study demonstrates the effectiveness of LID combinations with conventional stormwater systems to manage the future runoff in the study area, which is expected to increase by 26.3% in 2050.

Study on Planning and Design of Rainwater System Based on the Concept of Sponge City

In recent years, the concept of sponge city has been applied in different places. There are also many experts on sponge cities who believe that to build a sponge city in the city, we need to improve and optimize the rainwater system. In this way, we can better explore the way to plan and design the stormwater system when conducting the construction of the sponge city. This paper will also analyze and study the characteristics and functions of rainwater system planning in the construction of sponge city, and also point out the difficulties of the city in the construction of sponge city. Nowadays, the city must make clear its optimization direction, methods and principles in the transformation of rainwater system, and the optimization and transformation of rainwater system can also improve the construction progress of sponge city faster. The optimization and application of rainwater system can lay a solid foundation for the construction of sponge city.

Adverse impact of municipal solid waste transportation on collected stormwater biosolids quality

The objective of this paper was to identify possible specific contamination of stormwater biosolids, with a special emphasis on pollution associated with transportation of municipal solid wastes to the waste utilization plant. The study area for sampling includes two selected points of separate stormwater collection system in Cracow. Samples of stormwater and biosolids were collected during spring-summer-autumn season addressed towards rainy days to check the scope of the problem The results led to conclusion, whether the waste utilization plant impacts the stormwater quality, compared to the high-traffic road. The largest pollutants found in stormwater near the plant were nutrients (nitrogen, phosphorus) however general content of organic matter in biosolids collected in separated stormwater system also confirmed adverse impact of solid waste transportation on stormwater sludge (biosolids) quality.

Sustainable stormwater management and design

Stormwater system are necessary to convey urban runoff from a city in order to avoid floods in urban areas. Large water volumes of urban runoff bring important changes to natural water flow regime not only in a city but also downstream bringing pollution to entire river basin .The paper gives the rationale and principles of new development within urban storrnwater management. Two detailed application examples of new storrnwater management are presented in the paper.

An integrated urban stormwater model system supporting the whole life cycle of sponge city construction programs in China

The nationwide Sponge City Construction (SCC) program was launched by the Chinese government in 2014. There is a lack of an integrated model system to assist the efforts throughout all the SCC phases, including planning, design, construction, evaluation and maintenance stages. In this study, an integrated stormwater system named Uwater was developed based on a Geographic Information System (GIS) platform, in which a comprehensive open-source urban stormwater runoff model called Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) was embedded. The platform utilized the spatial data management tools in GIS to extract the discrete spatial information such as land use and vegetation cover condition to obtain the composite hydrologic parameters required in the SWMM simulations. The system also fully uses the visualization capabilities of GIS to assist visual design of the Low Impact Development (LID) facilities and Capital Improvement Projects frequently used in the SCC programs. Furthermore, it could be used to assess the drainage capacity of the stormwater system and the corresponding inundation limits for further optimization of the design plans. Finally, a study case using the platform was conducted to test and verify the reliability and applicability of the Uwater system. Results show that the Uwater platform has great strengths and potential to assist the whole life cycle in the SCC program.