A modelling approach for assessing acute river impacts of realistic stormwater management strategies

A modelling approach for assessing acute river impacts of realistic stormwater management strategies

Conventional sewer models such as SWMM or InfoWorks CS are widely used to analyse effects of relative runoff reduction or storage capacity increase on a global scale. However, the applied tools are usually insufficient for planning precise stormwater management strategies on city quarter scale. We propose a modelling approach that combines a 1D sewer model and a river water quality model with a detailed hydrological rainfall-runoff model that includes model components for a multitude of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS). The modelling approach is demonstrated to evaluate realistic measure combinations developed for a city quarter in Berlin, Germany. Results show that negative river impacts of combined sewer overflows (CSO), in our case fish-critical oxygen conditions, can be completely prevented with a set of adequate measures.