Urban Storm-Water Quality Management: Centralized versus Source Control

Abstract

Abstract:The continuous growth of urban areas and the increasing public awareness of the environmental impacts of storm water have raised interest on the quality of the receiving water bodies. In the past two decades, many efforts have been directed at improving urban drainage systems by introducing mitigation measures to limit the negative environmental impacts of storm water. These mitigation measures are generally called best management practices ͑BMPs͒, sustainable urban drainage systems, or low impact developments, and they include practices such as infiltration and storage tanks that reduce the peak flow and retain some of the polluting materials. Choosing the best mitigation measure is still a controversial topic. To gain insight on the best technique, this study compares different distributed and centralized urban storm-water management techniques, including infiltration and storage facilities. The main objective of this study is to use modeling to assess the effects of the different urban drainage techniques. To this end, a homemade model that was developed in previous studies is applied. This model enables us to simulate both combined sewer systems and ancillary structures such as storm tanks or infiltration trenches to determine water quantity and quality characteristics. A long-term simulation is employed to account for the effects of sediments in BMPs, which generally reduce the hydraulic capacity. The results allow us to draw some conclusions on the peculiarities of BMP techniques, on the possibility of integrating different techniques for improving efficiency, and on BMP maintenance planning.

Reducing combined sewer overflows by using outlet controls for Green Stormwater Infrastructure: Case study in Richmond, Virginia

“…The authors found that the LID site design generated much lower runoff volumes, provided more recharge and provided more resilience to changes in extreme events; the same is suggested in Pyke et al (2011). On the other hand, Freni et al (2010) evaluated distributed or source controls (LID) versus centralized storage for mitigating CSOs using a simulation model. The authors found that centralized controls were more robust.…”

Evaluating the Impact of Low Impact Development (LID) Practices on Water Quantity and Quality under Different Development Designs Using SWAT

“…The effectiveness of LID practices for small storms was also presented in Ackerman and Stein [10], Carter and Jackson [11], Schneider and McCuen [14], etc. In addition, the effects of LID practices were evaluated differently according to locations, numbers, and types of LID practices [15,16].…”

Assessment of LID practices for restoring pre-development runoff regime in an urbanized catchment in southern Finland

“…To mitigate adverse hydrological and water quality impacts of rapid urbanization, a number of stormwater management techniques have been developed and adopted, but there is still a significant debate over the best approaches (Freni et al 2010;Burns et al 2012;Shuster & Rhea 2013). An increasingly attractive approach is decentralization and source control which uses a limited number of control measures distributed throughout a catchment (Booth & Jackson 1997).…”