9th International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling

Belgrade 2012

Evaluating the impact of climate change on urban

scale extreme rainfall events: Coupling of multiple
global circulation models with a stochastic rainfall
generator
Gonzalo Pea1 , Assela Pathirana2
1

MSc. Research Fellow - UNESCO-IHE, Westvest 7, Delft. The Netherlands

penac1@unesco-ihe.org
2
Senior Lecturer in Urban Drainage and Sewerage - UNESCO-IHE, Westvest 7, Delft. The Netherlands
a.pathirana@unesco-ihe.org

ABSTRACT
Assessing the impact of climate change in an urban drainage context requires the
use of tools and methodologies that work at the local scale and fine temporal
resolution. This paper aims to provide a methodology for the downscaling of an
ensemble of Global Circulation Models (GCMs) output in order to produce
synthetic point urban scale rainfall series using an hourly stochastic rainfall
generator. In order to combine the results of several GCMs, a previously developed
methodology makes use of Bayesian approach to produce a probabilistic
distribution of the factors of change for different statistical properties. These
factors will be applied to the statistical properties of the observed data in order to
re-evaluate the parameters of the rainfall generator.
Hourly rainfall data from the city of Kochi (Japan) for the period of 1976-2000 has
been used to assess the proposed methodology. The stochastic downscaling process
makes use of twelve GCMs as input for the periods of 2046-2065 and 2081-2100
and scenarios A1b, B1 and A2 as adopted by the intergovernmental panel on
climate change (IPCC). Results are derived from multiple future realizations of
climate for the different scenarios and periods.
The rainfall generator used is proficient in reproducing the extreme events for
different rainfall durations but limited to return periods of ten years and smaller.
The methodology produces results that are consistent with the different scenarios
but by only taking the mean factor of change in the probability distribution, results
presented are only indicative of a likely scenario. Further uncertainties present in
the described methodology are discussed.

KEYWORDS
Climate change, extreme events, rainfall generator, stochastic downscaling

INTRODUCTION

Growing cities are becoming more vulnerable to damaging flood events as a result of rapid
urbanization, population growth and changes in extreme precipitation frequency and intensity due to
climate change. In the development of prevention and mitigation strategies against floods and the
design of urban drainage, knowing the impact of climate change is of paramount importance.
Climate change can be defined then as the change in the state of the statistics trends during the period
of analysis for the entire globe. This definition takes into account both the changes caused by the
natural variability of the earth system and the changes induces by man activity also known as
anthropogenic factors. (UN 2007)
An increasing concern in climate and the intervention of human kind in its change fostered the
creation of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on 1988. The aim of this
international body is to provide scientific basis on the current state in climate change as well as the
potential social, environmental and economic impacts. This is achieved by means of periodical reports
that aggregate the findings of different international research groups that at the same time serve to
define a unified and coherent framework of climate impact assessment. (IPCC 2011a)
1.1

Tools in the assessment of climate change: GCMs

GCMs are numerical models that represent the different physical processes that take place in the
atmosphere, ocean, cryosphere and land surface. The processes include the exchange of momentum,
heat, moisture for the atmospheric layers plus diffusion and advection in oceanic layers. (IPCC 2011b)
These GCMs are defined using coarse three dimensional grids throughout the entire globe having a
horizontal resolution that varies between 250 - 600 km (at the equator) and using up to 20 and 30
layers in the atmosphere and oceans respectively. (Viner n.d.). Being numerical models, initial and
boundary conditions are needed in order to be executed and the resolution of GCMs will be dictated
by the computing power and storage available.
Many physical processes, including clouds, cannot directly be represented at the scale GCMs work, so
parameterization is needed in order to average properties. This represents a source of uncertainty in
every model. Other sources might come from the fact that different models have different mechanism
to take into account for instance, water vapour and warming, clouds and radiation, ocean circulation
and ice and snow albedo. For this reason, different models developed by different working groups on
the subject using a same set of forcing conditions can produce divergent output adding to uncertainty,
as illustrated by Figure 1. At the same time initial conditions play an important role, so small
differences may have a dramatic impact as simulations in the GCMs go further in time.

Figure 1. The time evolution of the globally averaged temperature change relative to the years (1961
to 1990). GCMs using IS92a. G: greenhouse gas only as scenario forcing.
[Source: Adapted from (IPCC 2001a)]

1.2

Special report on emission scenarios (SRES)

The team designated by the IPCC to be in charge of the SRES development, envisioned a set of
emission scenarios covering a wide range of driving forces including agriculture, population,
economy, technology an available sources of energy. Each one of these scenarios develops from a set
of story lines to take into account how future developments could influence the increase or decrease of
green house gases (GHG) emission (IPCC 2001b). Scenarios are described and schematically
represented Table 1 and Figure 2 respectively.
Table 1. SRES Scenarios description
Scenario

Description

A1

A world of very rapid economic growth, a global population that peaks in mid-century
and rapid introduction of new and more efficient technologies

A2

A heterogeneous world with high population growth, slow economic development and
slow technological change

B1

A convergent world, with the same global population as A1, but with more rapid
changes in economic structures toward a service and information economy

B2

Describes a world with intermediate population and economic growth, emphasising

local solutions to economic, social, and environmental sustainability
[Source: Adapted from (IPCC 2001b)]

ECONOMIC
A1T

A1

A1F

A1B

A2
Driving forces:
Population, economy,
technology, Energy,
Agriculture

GLOBAL
B1

REGIONAL
B2*

ENVIRONMENTAL

Figure 2. SRES scenarios. A1FI, A1T A1B refer to the alternative directions of technological
change and stand for Fossil intensive, Non-fossil intensive resources and balanced between all
sources respectively. *Scenario B2 is not evaluated in this study
According to IPCC (2007), it is very likely that heavy precipitation events and their associated
frequency increase over most areas of the globe. Ongoing research in the field of climate change
impact assessment has focused on the regional, catchment hydrological scale ignoring until recently
the impact on urban catchments at a local scale. (Fowler et al. 2007; Willems et al. 2012)
The development of a downscaling methodology to provide synthetic rainfall series at the urban scale
from GCM output represents the initial step of any future urban climate change impact assessment
study. The subsequent development of a tool will naturally lead to a better understanding of the
present and future risks and vulnerabilities of large cities when complex infrastructure faces extreme
precipitation events.
1.3

Downscaling alternatives

There are different methodologies that can be applied in the process of downscaling. A brief summary
is made in the subsequent paragraphs, and a more thorough description of the stochastic rainfall
generator employed in this work can be found subsequently.
1.3.1

Dynamic downscaling

This method refers to the use of regional climate models (RCMs) using a nested modelling technique
where the output of GCMs simulations provides the time-varying boundary and initial conditions
around a nite domain or region of interest inside the GCM.
RCMs are also mathematical/numerical models that resolve at a finer grid resolution in latitude and
longitude. The resolution of the models has increased in recent years thanks to advancements in
computing power. Nowadays RCMs can routinely achieve resolutions of 10 km. This increased
resolution allows for a better approximation of regional phenomena like orographic precipitation,
extreme climate events and regional scale climate anomalies, or other effects such as El Nio Southern
Oscillation (ENSO). (Fowler et al. 2007; Sunyer et al. n.d.).
1.3.2

Statistical downscaling

This method refers to the correlation of the coarse GCMs scale in both space and time of the state of
the atmosphere, named predictor variables and the small scale precipitation named predictand variable.
The statistical model is based on historical time series so an assumption taken by these methods is that
4

the predictor/predictand relationship will not change under changing climate conditions, also known as
stationarity condition. (Bierkens et al. 2000). These can be further classified in:

Transfer functions

Resampling methods

Stochastic downscaling

The later set of techniques, also known as stochastic rainfall generators or weather generators consist
of a mixture of empirical statistical relations and physical methods. The idea is to adopt the use of
stochastic models that are guided by descriptions of physical phenomena of the modelled process.
(Fatichi et al. 2011)
Stochastic processes deal with systems that develop in time and space following probabilistic laws
(Cox and Miller 1977). They can be applied to the description of rain cells and clustering, the
dependence between precipitation and cloudiness and dependences between temperature and radiation
among others.
Stochastic generators traditionally are parameterized by using existing long historic series. This is
done in order to adapt the underlying probabilistic functions to comply with basic statistical to the best
extent to properties like the mean and other higher order moments such as the variance, the skewness
and the kurtosis. (Semenov 2011)
1.4

Poisson cluster processes

Stochastic precipitation generators are known for already almost 20 years, but several enhancements
have been developed to increasing the complexity and at the same time improving the ability to
represent rainfall processes. The Neyman Scott Rectangular Pulse Generator (NSRP) and the BartlettLewis rectangular pulse (BLRP) are among such stochastic methods aiming to produce rainfall based
on a probabilistic model. In their basic specification both models follow a similar process described in
the following steps and making reference to Figure 3:
1. Firstly storm origins arrives according to a Poisson Process (Occurrence follows a Poisson
distribution in time)"
2. Each origin generates a random number of rain cells x
3. The duration of each rain cell is exponentially distributed
4. The intensity of each rain cell is exponentially distributed as well
5. The total intensity is equal to the sum of active rain cells
The key difference between the two models lies in the reference to which rain cells are generated,
which is relative to the storm origin in the NSRP and relative to each consecutively generated rain cell
in the BLRP. In the basic form the model is defined by five parameters. Modifications have been made
to the models allowing cell duration to vary from storm to storm hence creating the need of an
additional parameter and further statistical properties have been derived, including the skewness and
the proportion of dry days (Cowpertwait 1998). This modified models have also been subject to
additional configurations, like superposition to create mixed rectangular pulses in order to better
represent different types of rainfall like convective and stratiform (Cowpertwait 2004).

Most recent development in the field is the improvement of a modified Bartlett-Lewis pulse model
(BLP) to be used in the generation of subhourly rainfall. This model discards the rectangular pulse
approach and replaces it with a Poisson process to generate instantaneous depths which better
represent fine scale rainfall processes (Cowpertwait et al. 2011)
Neyman-Scott process
Time
Bartlett-Lewis process
Rain cell origin

intensity

Storm origin

intensity

Time

Time
Figure 3. Schematic representation of NSRP and BLRP model
1.5

Multimodel ensembles

A great wealth of information regarding climate impact studies is reflected in the different worldwide
projects involving intercomparison of GCMs output. The Working Group on Coupled Modelling
(WGCM) has been instrumental in this endeavour by collecting the different data available from
research centres all around the world and making it available in through the WCRP coupled model
intrcomparison project (CMIP3) multi-model dataset.
According to (Smith et al. 2009) uncertainties in climate projection can be roughly classified in:

Natural climate variability

Uncertainties in the way forcing factors, like the changes in levels of greenhouse gases, affect
the climatic response

Uncertainties on what the future will be like in terms of future emissions scenarios and the
like.

For the later the different results obtained by different models and different forcing scenarios has
grown the necessity to incorporate the evaluation of uncertainty using a framework that somehow
assigns a weight to the different models used (Tebaldi and Knutti 2007). These approaches have
showed better results when compared to simple averages where every model is given an equal weight.

Several methods exist today to explicitly take into account the variability of different models including
the Reliability Ensemble Average (REA) which propose a direct estimation of bias and convergence
for the different models. Another methodology is the use of a Bayesian analysis, where the unknown
quantities are treated as random variables to finally derive a posterior probability distribution function
of all the uncertain quantities of interest (Tebaldi et al. 2005a).
These methodologies rely in the assumption of independence between models which is not strictly
guaranteed taking into account the fact that models based on physical description of natural
phenomena would use similar mathematical description of atmospheric and oceanic processes.
Nevertheless by increasing the number of models used, narrower posterior probability distributions are
obtained, hence producing better estimates with reduced uncertainty.
1.6

Main objective

The overall objective of the presented document is to develop and extend a downscaling methodology
applicable to general circulation models output taking into account the impact of climate change for
different emission scenarios in order to produce urban point scale rainfall data that allows for the
estimation of extreme events for different return periods. The development of the work also included
the exploration of an open source environment for scientific computing making use of the Python
programming language.

METHODOLOGY
1.

Estimation of monthly rainfall generator parameters for case study location (Kochi,
Japan) using statistical properties of historical data (1976-2000)

2. Evaluation of monthly climate statistical properties for an ensemble of climate

models and three different emission scenarios (SRES-A1b, SRES-A2 and SRES-B1)

3.

4.

Evaluation of factors of change for the different statistical properties at different

aggregation intervals using a Bayesian ensemble approach.

Calculation of mean factors of change for each statistical property and calculation of
future statistical properties (for aggregation intervals >= 24 hours)

5.

Extension to finer aggregation scales of future statistical properties ( < 24 hours)

6.

Calculation of new set of modified parameters for the rainfall generator per month

7.

Simulation of an ensemble of future synthetic rainfall using the modified generator.

(200 realizations per scenario)

8.

Evaluation of impact on extreme rainfall events using IDF curves analysis.

Figure 4. A scheme of the stochastic downscaling methodology.

The methodology employed in this work, follows closely the methodology proposed in (Fatichi et al.
2011), and extends it to make use of 12 GCM models, which is expected to reduce the uncertainty in
the results and at the same produces more robust results. At the same time several emission scenarios,
namely SRES A1b, A2 and B1 are evaluated to offer further insight in the different evolution of
rainfall extreme events. Figure 4. Illustrates the main steps in the downscaling processes, which will
be described in more detail in the subsequent chapters.
2.1

Case study exploratory analysis

The basic rainfall data used in this study was required

in the hourly scale. Various case studies were selected
in Japan covering different latitudes and climatic
conditions, ranging from Sapporo in the north to Naha
in the south to check the performance of the
stochastic rainfall generator.
For the present evaluation of the influence of climate
change in extreme rainfall only the city Kochi will be
analyzed as it presented the highest intensity events
from the historical series. All of the information was
obtained through the Automated Meteorological Data
Acquisition System (AMeDAS) from the period of
1976, when the system was launched, up to 2010.
In order to be consistent with the simulations of
GCMs in the 20th century, a decision to use only the
records from 1976 up to 2000 was made, as this
period is included in the simulations by different
models. The impact of this decision will be discussed
in the results.
Figure 6. summarizes the general trends observed in
the time series. For the annual regime of rainfall, a
tendency to increase can be observed in the period
from 1995 to 2000. The highest amount of rainfall
occurs in the months of June and September which
can be observed in the multiannual monthly and daily
statistics. Finally for the wet and dry mean spell
durations, there is no appreciable change in the trend
for the recorded series.

Figure 5. Case study locations in Japan

Figure 6. Exploratory analysis of historical data in Kochi Japan [1976-2000]

The total annual rainfall does display a slight non stationary behaviour whereas the wet-dry spell
durations do not. Because of these minor variations, the stationary assumption which is the base of the
parametrization of the stochastic rainfall generator and further application of the change factors
concept, is not expected to induce significant errors.
2.2

GCM Output

The dataset from the CMIP3 includes 25 different GCMs output, but not all models have available
data for the same periods of time, or even the same scenarios. From these 25 models a first selection
was made, taking into account that there was information for all the scenarios and for both periods to
analyze, namely 2046-2065 and 2081-2100. As it was mentioned earlier, the Bayesian Ensemble
concept used and described in full detail (Tebaldi et al. 2005a) relies on the independence of the
climate models used as part of the ensemble is assumed.
From the preselection of models a final ensemble was picked out taking into account:

If different models come from a same working group or research centre, only the latest or
most complete model (in terms of data availability) is used.
9

If a model contains several runs for the same period, only the latest run is used, accounting
that this run has complete data record for the periods of interest.

Figure 7. summarizes the final list of models selected and the available information for the different
emission scenario where all output is available at the daily scale.

Figure 7. GCM output data available for past and future runs for the selected GCM models

2.3

Parametrization of Newman-Scott Rectangular Pulse (NSRP)

The stochastic model used in this research corresponds to the rainfall component used in the Advanced
Weather Generator (AWE-GEN). A full description of the governing equations can be found in
(Cowpertwait 2004; Fatichi et al. 2011).
To find the parameters the approach suggested in (Cowpertwait 2004) was to fit the statistical
properties at different aggregation intervals ensuring the preservation of a wide range of rainfall
scales. The adimensional statistical properties used to fit the model are:

The normalized standard deviation: Coefficient of variation

The third moment around the mean: Skewness

The dry spell fraction

The lag-1 autocovariance

This process implied the use of an objective function in the form of equation (1) to minimize the
different observed statistics with the ones produced by the model.
(1)
10

This function was applied for the entire aggregation intervals used in calibration and the before
mentioned statistical properties. The weight coefficient could be applied to different statistics or
aggregation interval to give importance to higher order moments which are of interest when
investigating the extreme values. Biases in the estimation of the function are partially avoided by
making use of the reciprocal terms of fitted and observed statistics (inside square brackets).
For the current models the same weight was given to all the parameters evaluated and a constrained
optimization routine, namely the BroydenFletcherGoldfarbShanno (BFGS) method was used.
To account for seasonality a set of parameters was defined per calendar month and different
aggregation intervals were evaluated. The final set of aggregation intervals used was 1, 6, 12 and 96
hours.
2.4

Multiple realizations

The stochastic nature of the rainfall model used produces a different set of extreme rainfalls for each
time a simulation that is run. If a sufficiently long simulation is executed, the statistics of the generated
synthetic rainfall events (if appropriately fitted), would then match the observed statistics; however
this approach cannot be used when analyzing annual extremes.
To account for extremes, several runs must be performed. A set of 200 simulations covering the same
period as the one of the observations (1976-200) were run and then the median and a 95% percentile
band were compared to observed maxima using a reduced Gumbel variate as displayed in Figure 8.
and Figure 9.

Figure 8. Comparison of annual maxima using reduced variate plots. Historical data and multiple
synthetic rainfall runs. 1 and 12-hourly aggregation
The model is able to correctly represent extreme events with return periods inferior or equal to 10
years, but underestimates values for return periods of 20 or more years. Nevertheless observed values
are bounded by the 95% percentile band which confirms that the model is able to reproduce the
observed events.

11

Figure 9. Comparison of annual maxima using reduced variate plots. Historical data and multiple
synthetic rainfall runs. 24 and 72-hourly aggregation

2.5

Factors of change

In order to include the impact of climate change, the factors of change have to be calculated for each
calendar month and could be applied to all the statistical properties employed in the stochastic model
calibration.
Figure 10. depicts the concept of factor of change derived from a non stationary climate, where the
statistical value over the future and historical period of study are used to derive a factor quotient. The
curving line represents a single GCM output for both the 20th century and beyond.
Statistic
Value

Change Factor

1970
Historical State

2000

2030

2060

Time

Future State

Now

Figure 10. Stationarity assumption and change factor concept

This relation can be then applied to the observed statistics on the location to recalibrate the
NSRP model parameters at the corresponding aggregation interval.
.
(2)

12

2.6

Bayesian ensemble approach

By using the methodology employed in (Tebaldi et al. 2005b) the simulations from different GCMs
can be combined through Bayes Theorem, shown in equation (3)
(3)
Where y represent the data available and theta the parameters.
In general terms the Bayesian ensemble methodology produces a probability density function (PDF)
for both the historical (mu) and future scenarios (nu) for the statistical property used at the specified
aggregation interval.
To produce this, the probabilistic model makes use of both future and historical values in the grid
point where the case study is located for all the 12 GCMs but also takes into account the observed data
in the location. By including observed data in the conditioning, the PDF produced for locations found
in the same grid of the GCMs would yield different results.
After obtaining the PDFs for historical and future values, the PDF for the change factor can be
calculated as the quotient of the previously obtained values. In Figure 11. we can see the results for the
mean 24-hourly aggregated rainfall in the month of January for scenarios A1b and B1 in the period
2046-2065.

Figure 11. Bayesian Ensemble results. January 24-hourly rainfall mean scenarios A1b and B1

13

Additional assumptions have been made during the application of this procedure, for instance, the
different resolution of GCMs were not taken into account but instead the value of the entire grid in the
model was considered representative of the location. Although this might be seen as a misleading
assumption, it is a compromise in order to not introduce any further uncertainties in the calculations,
besides is worth noting that the exact values of (mu) and (nu) are not of direct interest, but the change
between these two.
With the PDF of the factor of change at hand, a Montecarlo type simulation could be performed to
account for the uncertainties in the use of an ensemble of GCMs. This was however out of the scope of
this research and instead the mean factor of change was used which represents a very likely event for
each of the scenarios.
2.7

Extension of statistical properties to finer scales

The Bayesian ensemble procedure was applied only to aggregation intervals larger than 24 hours, as
this was the minimum resolution available in the GCMs results dataset.
2.7.1

Mean

It is straightforward as illustrated by Figure 12. that the mean follows a linear relationship, so a simple
extension of the data can be assumed

Figure 12. Factor of change for the mean for different aggregation steps for the months of
September, October, November and December. Scenario A1b, period 2046-2065

2.7.2

Dry spell fraction / probability of dry spell

The different available historical data analyzed

displayed a clear exponential decaying for the
DSP at different aggregation intervals (Figure
13.).
Theoretically as the aggregation interval tends
to zero, the dry spell fraction should tend to
one.
The DSP fraction obtained from the factors of
change for aggregations of 24, 48, 72 and 96
hours were used to fit equation (5) using least
squares method.

Figure 13. Dry spell fraction variation. August

(4)

14

2.7.3

Skewness

There is not a satisfactory methodology applicable to the extension of skewness to finer scales.
Nevertheless there seems to be a correlation between the shape of the coefficient of variation and the
shape of the skewness for different aggregation interval (Figure 14). Finally the value for subdaily
scales was assumed to remain equal to the observed values.

Figure 14. Variation of coefficient of variation and skewness of observed data for various
aggregation intervals

2.7.4

Variance

For this extension the procedure used a theoretical derivation by (Marani 2003, 2005) was used tested
successfully by (Fatichi et al. 2011) for aggregation intervals between 1 and 6 hours.
2.8

Extreme rainfall analysis

The final step in the downscaling procedure was to generate a set of Intensity Duration-Frequency
curves for different return periods using standard methodology. Figure 15 displays the results for the
Kochi location without any type of adjustment or smoothing.

Figure 15. IDF curves, historical data [1976-1999]

15

For the final results, equation (5) was used as a generalized equation to adjust values and the process
was accomplished minimizing the error using a nonlinear constrained bound optimization routine,
similar to the one used in the parametrization of the NSRP model.
(5)
2.9

Development infrastructure and tools used

Once the downscaling methodology was defined and in order to carry out the different tasks and fulfil
the proposed objectives, a programming language and development environment was selected.
Python, a high level interpreted language which is now a mature language after more than 20 years of
continuous development (Rossum and Drake 2011) presented as the best alternative including the
following characteristics:

Freely available, open source and cross platform

Easy to use and scalable

Powerful enough to carry out heavy numerical scientific computing.

For the later Python is enhanced by additional modules and packages that have an specific purpose,
like NumPy which is used for number crunching side by side with SciPy which offer some standard
scientific computing routines including statistics and optimization algorithms. The processing of the
entire GCMs output files was made through the Python-netCDF4 package. To perform the Bayesian
ensemble, PyMC package (Patil et al. 2010), was used which proved to greatly simplify any future
modification of the probability model employed.
Finally a graphical environment resembling Matlab style console was also tested and used (Raybaut
2009). Figure 16 displays the main packages and the dependencies between them.
Packages and subpackages

Graphical
Interface

Python

NumPy

Parallel-Python
Spyder

PyMC

Scipy

Matplotlib

netCDF4

Figure 16. Schematic representation of Python packages dependencies and Graphical Interface

2.9.1

Parallel computations

Despite the fact that one of the main advantages of stochastic downscaling is the comparative minor
effort from the computational point of view, assessing uncertainty, performing evaluations of the
goodness of fit of different parameter sets with several case studies and scenarios calls for the use of
parallel computations. In this sense, by parallel it is meant the distribution of several repetitive tasks
through a multi core system or a cluster of computers, instead of parallelizing the single task itself.
16

Parallelization of multiple tasks was achieved using the Py-PP package (Vanovschi 2012), which
allowed for a seamless implementation without the need to drastically modify existing code. The
computer used had 8 computational cores (2x4core Xeon processors) running Linux/Mint 10.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

For the month of September in the location of Kochi, it was particularly difficult to obtain a good fit
between the median of 200 realizations and the observed statistics. This is expected to heavily
influence the results as it was discussed in the exploratory analysis section as September historically
showed the highest intensity events. This month also presents the biggest variance changes through
aggregation intervals, variance that the 6 parameter NSRP might not be able to adequately capture.
The use of a mixed rectangular pulse model might have better captured the different rainfall types
occurring in the month of September, and this hypothesis should be explored in further investigations
dealing with extremes.

Figure 17. Statistical properties fit for multiple realizations. Observed data

17

Despite this limitation, the model displayed a good fit in terms of extremes when the construction of
IDF curves was need as can be appreciated in Figure 18. and Figure 19. The solid black line which
represents the IDF curves using the median reduced variate of 200 simulations closely matches the
shape and values of the dashed line, representing the IDF curve produced from observed data.
The before mentioned figures also contained the expected IDF curves for the different scenarios. For
the location of Kochi, the general trends regarding changes in extremes show that for a return period
of 2 years the expected behaviour diverges between all the scenarios. Nevertheless for long duration
rainfall the expected differences between different scenarios are negligible.

Figure 18. IDF Curve for the 2 year return period simulated events in the period of 2046-2065
For the period of 2081-2100 scenarios A2 more strongly diverges from B1 and A1b, but all scenarios
predict less intense rainfall events

Figure 19. IDF Curve for the 2 year return period simulated events in the period of 2081-2100

18

Figure 20. predicts an increase of up to 25 % in the intensity of short duration events for the return
period of 20 years on scenario B1 and almost no change in intensity for scenario A2. On the other the
dowscaling model predicts a decrease in the intensity of extreme rainfall events for the different
rainfall durations analyzed.

Figure 20. Expected change in intensity for period [2046-2065] 2 and 20 years return period

For the late 21st century period, all scenarios predict an overall decrease in the intensity of rainfall
events, specially marked for long duration rainfall and return periods of 2 years. Finally for the 20 year
return period, all scenario predict a decrease in intensity for short duration events but a considerable
increase in scenario A2 for long duration events.

Figure 21. Expected change in intensity for period [2081-2100] 2 and 20 years return period
The results display a wide variety of possible futures in which short duration rainfall extremes can be
expected to both increase and decrease in the order of 20% with respect to observed historical series.
For the period of 2081-2100 an increase in emissions is predicted compared to both present time and
the period of 2046-2065. This trend is not directly reflected in the results obtained by the proposed
methodology and is particularly evident for short duration rainfall extremes.

19

This can be a direct result of the method used for extending to finer temporal resolutions, in
particularly the case of the variance estimation. In general terms when analyzing larger regions at the
continental scale, same scenarios and periods for different GCMs usually predict and overall increase
or decrease for the trends in climatic variables. This however cannot be assumed to be the case when
analyzing grid scale events as there is no consensus in what the expected impact of a given scenario
and period would be on a given point location. The Bayesian ensemble methodology aims to
overcome this situation by giving a bigger weight to GCMs that tend to produce similar results, but for
different periods of analysis and for different statistics analyzed weights might vary.
Finally by the fitness of the stochastic rainfall model is expected to be affected from cutting the
available time series from 1976-2010, to only 1976-2000. This not only reduces the available pool of
data but limited the array of return periods that could be accurately represented.

CONCLUSIONS

A methodology based on the use of a weather generator in climate impact studies was extended to
include several GCMs, several scenarios and several future periods. A stochastic rainfall generator
based on the NSRP was implemented and further developments were included in the downscaling
procedure. By means of multiple realizations of synthetic rainfall series, the influence of climate
change was evaluated on extreme values and the associated return periods.
The uncertainty in the use of different GCMs output could be assessed by implementing a Montecarlo
type simulation in which random samples are extracted from the PDFs of the factor of change. This
approach however needs to clearly define the covariances matrix between the different statistics at
different aggregation intervals in order to condition the Montecarlo sampling.
Large uncertainties still exist in the developed procedure that are inherent to the Bayesian Ensemble
approach, including the assumption of independence between different GCMs and the mismatch
between the grid cell size. A more robust ensemble could be produced if more models had several runs
for the same periods and scenarios as this could serve as additional input in the probability model.
Furthermore, the present research carried out multiple realizations of a single NSRP model using
1,6,24 and 96 hourly rainfall as aggregation intervals in the evaluation of rainfall extremes and curves.
This was selected as the one who show the best fit in terms of extremes. However, it is almost certain
that the use of a different set of calibration statistics using different parameters would produce
different results and this variability between different parametrizations amounts for an extra layer of
uncertainty.
Finally the use of freely available and open source tools was successfully explored with the additional
benefit of applying a simple parallelization scheme using a multiple core computer. The use of these
tools should be greatly encouraged in and by the research community as means to reach a wider
audience.

FURTHER RESEARCH

The presented results offer an approach that can be applied to different locations in the world where
rainfall data in the hourly scale is available. Still further research needs to be pursued in this direction
in order to assess the uncertainty of the obtained extreme rainfall events. In order to make use of the
methodology in places where only daily data is available a disaggregation mechanism could be
20

implemented making direct use of the rainfall generator (Frost et al. 2004) or though a multi fractal
cascading scheme (Pathirana et al. 1999, 2003). However, this procedure would introduce an extra
degree of uncertainty in the calculations. Instead, it would be desirable to have a single stochastic
model being able to represent the rainfall characteristics at different aggregation periods ranging from
the subhourly to the daily scale.
Seasonality has been traditionally taken on a monthly basis by parametrizing a different rainfall
generator for each calendar month where the factors of change are also calculated and applied for the
same scale (Fatichi et al. 2011). Although any variation of this scheme would also be arbitrary, there is
a need to assess the impact of using a different grouping to represent seasonality. This will be limited
by the available data as smaller grouping scheme would yield less data for statistical analysis. On the
other hand a too large grouping scheme might not represent seasonality adequately.
Given the uncertainties that arise in studying climate there is a need to follow an approach that not
only takes different scenarios and GCM models but several statistical downscaling techniques as well
(Willems et al. 2012). This can be accomplish by making use of the different variants of Poisson
cluster processes developed in recent years (Cowpertwait 2009; Cowpertwait et al. 2011), or by
including the same model using different aggregation intervals for calibration.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

This paper is part of an MSc research carried out at UNESCO-IHE, Delft, The Netherlands and was
funded by a mixed private and public Colombian fund through the COLFUTURO Loan/Scholarship
program. We would like to acknowledge the Program for Climate Model Diagnosis and
Intercomparison (PCMDI) as well as the different working groups and research institutions for sharing
their results with the working research community which were finally made available through the
Coupled Model Intercomparison Project 3 (CMIP3). An additional word of gratitude goes to the
Japanese Automated Meteorological Data Acquisition System (AMeDAS), which supplied the rainfall
data used in this project. Our most sincere appreciation goes to Dr. Toshiyuki Nakaegawa of the Japan
Meterological Agency and Dr. Tsuichi Tsuchiya of National institute of Land and Infrastructure
Management of Japan. Finally we would like to thank Dr. Simone Fatichi for his support and guidance
in the development of this research.

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Environmental Research 1st edn. Springer, p.
Burton A., Fowler H.J., Blenkinsop S. and Kilsby C.G. (2010). Downscaling transient climate change
using a Neyman-Scott Rectangular Pulses stochastic rainfall model. Journal of Hydrology,
381(1-2), 1832.
Cowpertwait P.S.P. (1998). A Poisson-cluster model of rainfall: some high-order moments and
extreme values. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London. Series A: Mathematical, Physical
and Engineering Sciences, 454(1971), 885898.
Cowpertwait P.S.P. (2004). Mixed rectangular pulses models of rainfall. Hydrology and Earth System
Sciences, 8(5), 9931000.
21

Cowpertwait P.S.P. (2009). A Neyman-Scott model with continuous distributions of storm types.
ANZIAM Journal, 51(SUPPL.), C97C108.
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model of rainfall with dependent pulse depths within cells. Hydrological Sciences Journal,
56(7), 11101117.
Fatichi S., Ivanov V.Y. and Caporali E. (2011). Simulation of future climate scenarios with a weather
generator. Advances in Water Resources, 34(4), 448467.
Fowler H.J., Blenkinsop S. and Tebaldi C. (2007). Linking climate change modelling to impacts
studies: recent advances in downscaling techniques for hydrological modelling. International
Journal of Climatology, 27(12), 15471578.
Frost A.J., Cowpertwait P.S.P. and Srikanthan R. (2004). Stochastic generation of point rainfall data at
subdaily timescales: a comparison of DRIP and NSRP CRC for Catchment Hydrology, Clayton,
Vic., p.
IPCC (2001a). IPCC Third Assessment Report - Climate Change 2001 - Complete online versions |
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23

9th International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling

Belgrade 2012

Characterization of road-deposited sediments in

different land-use types in Tehran, Iran
Fatemeh Kazemiparkouhi1 , Masoud Tajrishy2, Masoud Kayhanian3
1

Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, f.kazemi135@gmail.com

Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran, tajrishy@sharif.edu
3
University of California, Davis, California, U.S.A., mdkayhanian@ucdavis.edu
2

ABSTRACT
This study investigates the characteristics of road-deposited sediments (RDS) from
selective impervious surfaces in the Metropolitan city of Tehran located in Iran. A
total number of 19 RDS samples were collected from three different land-use types
herewith denoted as residential, intense traffic and educational areas. The samples
were fractionated into seven grain-size ranges (1000-2000, 600-1000, 300-600,
150-300, 75-150, 45-75, and <45 m and analysed for particle size distribution
(PSD) and heavy metal concentration. Approximately, 50-80% of the total
sediment mass was related to particles <300 m. The maximum mean
concentrations of zinc, lead, copper, nickel and cadmium were respectively 536.4,
422.4, 210.3, 96.6 and 22.8 mg/kg. Samples from the intense traffic area had the
highest metal concentrations except for cadmium. For all analysed heavy metals
the highest mean concentrations were found in the particle size fraction in the
range of <45 to 75 m.

KEYWORDS
Heavy metals, Land use type, Particle size distribution, Road-deposited sediment, Tehran

INTRODUCTION

Tehran is facing many environmental problems due to expansion and population growth. Among these
problems, stormwater pollution is becoming an important issue in urban areas. As the population
grows and most pervious land uses are transformed into impervious surfaces, the discharge of point
and non-point source pollution is expected to increase. As a result the quality of receiving waters in
Tehran will further deteriorate. Compared with point-source pollution, management and control of
non-point source pollution in urban area is more challenging. Natural and manmade pollutants
accumulate on impervious surfaces including suspended solids, heavy metals and hydrocarbons which
can come from wide sources including wet deposition, soil erosion, vehicle exhaust, vehicle and road
1

wear and de-icing operations. These pollutants are washed off during rain events and because of the
large volume and short duration, practical treatment is harder.
Urban pollution can be investigated as dissolved and particle bound. Because nearly all best
management practice (BMP) treatment systems employed for urban runoff treatment are physically
based unit operation, investigation of particle size distribution and size resolved pollutants is
immensely valuable. To make our results more relevant to the literature, we tried to concentrate our
review on available literature on areas in Asia comparable to Tehran. Many researchers have studied
size-fractionated road sediments and evaluated their metal elemental compositions. Bian and Zhu
(2008) found that 60-80% of RDS samples in Zhenjiang, China consist predominantly of particles
<250 m and the maximum mean concentration of Zn, Pb and Cu were 686.93, 589.19 and 158.16
mg/kg, respectively. Faiz et al. (2009) found that the average concentration of Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn
were 5 1, 52 18, 23 6, 104 29 and 116 35 mg/kg, respectively in dust samples collected from
the Islamabad Expressway. Highest concentration of Cd, Cr, Cu, Ni, Pb and Zn in most areas of
Haidian District, Beijing were 0.28-1.31, 57.9-154, 68.1-142, 25.8-78.0, 73.1-222 and 264-664 mg/kg,
respectively (Zhao et al. 2010). While the particle size distribution and concentration of heavy metals
in RDS vary from one city to another (Jiries et al. 2001), the above studies showed that highest
concentration of metal pollutants are usually associated with smaller particle size range and the
concentrations generally increased with decreased particle size.
Particle size distribution and size-resolved metal pollutants of road-deposited sediments in Iran has not
been previously investigated which is the focus of this study. The major objectives of our study were:
(1) to determine the particle size distribution of RDS, and (2) to quantify total mean concentration of
heavy metals in RDS samples, and (3) to quantify the mean concentration of heavy metals in selective
particle size range of the RDS. The results of this research will be used in future studies to estimate
pollutant wash off characteristics and in developing adequate modelling tool for designing appropriate
BMPs to address stormwater runoff management in Tehran.

2
2.1

METHODOLOGY
Study area

The study was performed in the Metropolitan city of Tehran, Iran (see Figure 1). Tehran lies on the
southern foothills of the Alborz Mountains and is located between latitude 35 3435 50 North and
longitude 51 0851 37 East. Its altitude varies from 1700 m in the North to 1200 m in the center and
1100 m in the South. Tehrans climate is hot and dry, and the average air temperature is 18 C with an
average maximum and minimum temperature of 38.7 and -7.4 C, respectively. The annual
precipitation ranges from 245 to 316 mm. Its 664 km2 territory comprises 22 urban regions. According
to the latest census conducted in 2006, it has 2.4 million households with population of 8.2 million and
an average population density of about 12,350 inhabitants per km2 (Mahdavi Damghani et al. 2008).
According to the head of Tehran Municipality's Environment and Sustainable Development Office,
Tehran has a capacity for 700,000 cars, but currently more than 3 million cars are on the roads in the
capital. Therefore most of Tehrans streets are suffering from traffic congestion and pollutant emission
(Municipality of Tehran, 2009).
2.2

Sample collection

A total of 19 RDS samples were collected from three different land use (herewith denoted as
residential, intense traffic and educational) areas (see Figure 1). Residential and intense traffic
2

sampling sites were located in Azadi St. with latitude 35 42 North and longitude 51 20 East and
latitude 35 41 North and longitude 51 20 East respectively. The mean traffic density in Azadi St. is
about 6000 vehicle/h. The educational sampling site was the campus of Tehran University with
latitude 35 42 North and longitude 51 23 East. The RDS samples were collected on September 2011
before midnight when the road cleaning was not practiced. In residential and intense traffic land use
areas, RDS samples were taken every night over a one week period (7 samples from each site) and in
educational land use areas samples were taken on workdays (5 samples). Each sample, approximately
100 to 400 g, was collected from the curbside using a clean plastic dustpan and a brush as described by
Bian and Zhu (2008). The samples were stored separately in plastic bags and labelled before
transporting them to the laboratory and subsequently each sample were processed and analysed
chemically.

Figure 1. Map of study area

2.3

Sample processing and chemical analysis

The RDS samples were dried for 48 h at 105 C. They were stored in a cool, dark place before further
fractionations and analysis (Bian and Zhu, 2008). Generally, particles larger than 2000 m are of
limited importance in transporting adsorbed metals in urban systems or easier to remove by
conventional BMPs (McKenzie et al., 2008; Kayhanian and Givens, 2011). Therefore, metal
concentration analysis was only performed for particles smaller than 2000 m. The dried RDS
samples were sieved using a 2-mm nylon mesh to remove gravel-sized materials and then screened
into seven size fractions using standard sieving methods prior to metal fraction analysis. The size
fractions and their descriptive classifications as used by the United States Department of Agriculture
(USDA) classifications were: 2000-1000 m (very coarse sand), 1000-600 m (coarse sand), 600-300
m (medium sand), 300-150 m (fine sand) 150-75 m (very fine sand), 75-45 m (silt and clay) and
<45 m (clay).
For measuring total metals concentration of RDS from each landuse, a composite samples was
prepared by mixing an equal mass (specify here) from each size fraction. About 300 mg of the
composite sample from each landuse was mixed with 6 mL of concentrated HNO3, 3 mL of HClO4
and 3 mL of HF. Then, 10 mL of HCl was added to residuals and diluted to 50 mL deionised water
following the procedure described in Bian and Zhu (2008). The digested solution was then analyzed to
measure the concentrations of Zn, Pb, Cu, Ni and Cd using an atomic absorption spectrophotometer
Varian 220A.
3

3
3.1

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Particle size distribution

The average results of particle size distribution (PSD) for all collected RDS samples are shown in
Figure 2a. As shown, the trend in PSD for all samples within all land use areas is similar. The
histogram of mean mass percentage versus grain size fraction is shown in Figure 2b. From these
results it can be seen that the mass percentage for particles <75-150 m increases in sequence order of
intense traffic area, residential area and educational area. The mass percentages for particles >75-150
m show the opposite trend. The mass percentages of particles <300 m in these three areas are about
62, 74 and 76%, respectively. These results show that RDS samples in Tehran consist predominantly
of finer sand, silt and clay particles.

Figure 2. Particle size distribution and histogram of mean mass percentage versus grain size fraction
for road-deposited sediment (RDS): (a) PSD and (b) histogram
Dust particles, particularly finer silt and clay size range can be re-suspended and blown by wind and
be carried to great distances. For example, De Miguel et al. (1997) found that particles <100 m are
easily resuspended and retained in the atmosphere due to the wind and air movement caused by
moving vehicles and breeze. This can be problematic when designing BMPs, particularly when the
highest metal concentration is reported to be associated with particles smaller than 63 m (Bian and
Zhu 2008). The finer dust particles and any pollutant that are sorbed on them can be washed off during
rain events and adversely impact the quality of surface and ground waters. To alleviate the dust
problem in Tehran, street sweeping is used periodically. Street sweepers, however, are found to be less
efficient in removing finer particulates. For example, their efficiency in removing particles between
63 and 600 m is less than 50% (Sartor and Boyd 1972). Therefore street sweeping alone may not be a
practical solution and other remedy such as construction BMPs may be necessary to further reduce the
pollution in urban areas of Tehran. It is also worth to mention that the source contributions of dust
particles in sampling areas in Tehran are not known and beyond the scope of this study. However,
majority of dust particles in urban areas are identified as roads and building construction sites, fossil
fuel combustion, power generation, vehicles wear, high temperature industrial processes such as metal
smelting and atmospheric deposition (Gourdeau, 2004).

3.2

Total concentrations of heavy metals in RDS

The mean values of total heavy metal mass concentrations as mg/kg in each of the initial RDS
collected from the three land use areas are presented in Table 1. Zn showed the highest mean
concentration (536.4 mg/kg) followed by Pb, Cu, Ni and Cd, with total concentration of 422.4, 210.3,
96.6 and 22.8 mg/kg, respectively. In addition, spatial variability of heavy metal concentration was
observed among different land use areas indicating that lower mean concentration in educational land
use compared with intense traffic land use area.
Table 1. Total heavy metal concentration of RDS sampled from three land use areas
Heavy metals

Total particulate mean concentration (mg/kg) from three land use areasa
Intense Traffic

Residential

Educational

Zn

536.4

319.3

430.4

Pb

422.4

502.9

219.4

Cu

210.3

114.2

189.8

Ni

96.6

124.6

92.1

Cd

16.6

30.3

16.3

The concentration was measured based on single composite sample prepared from a mixture of equal mass from each size
fraction for each land use area.
The impact of various land use on pollutant concentration is beyond the scope this study. However, as
mentioned before, a variety of sources could contribute to the presence of heavy metals in the
monitoring site areas. Examples of known sources of some metals such as Cd, Cu, Pb, Zn and Ni in
urban areas include: the wear of tires and brake pads, fuel combustion, combustion of lubricating oils,
metal finishing industrial emissions, corrosion of galvanized metals, corrosion of building parts, wear
of moving parts in engines, metallurgical and industrial emissions, fungicides and pesticides,
combustion of lubricating oils, power plants and trash incinerators and petroleum refinery(Makepeace
et al. 1995; USEPA 1996; Hogan et al. 2011). Because of the intense traffic and semi industrial and
commercial activities in and around the metropolitan area of Tehran, it is possible that most metals
measured in our study are generated from combination of sources mentioned above. The exact source
identification of pollutants is beyond the scope of this study and will be considered in our future
monitoring study.
3.3

Size resolved heavy metal concentrations

Fig. 3 shows the relationship between heavy metal concentrations with different particle size fractions.
The highest metals concentrations in different size fractions (except for Cd at the residential area)
occurred at the intense traffic area. Zinc was the most abundant metal element in different size
fractions at all land use areas. As shown in Fig. 3, the concentration of all heavy metals increased with
decreasing particle size a trait which was shown to be fairly consistent among all three land use areas.
Other than a few exceptions, generally, the highest concentrations were measured in the smallest
particles (<45 m). The results obtained from this study are consistent with previous size resolved
metals concentrations reported by McKenzie et al (2008) and Kayhanian and Givens (2011),
indicating the importance of finer particles in roadway runoff and dry deposited particles. It is
important to note that while the particulate metals concentrations are higher in smaller particle size
5

ranges, their mass contribution can be substantially lower (see figure 2a). However, the contribution
of pollution related to these finer mass particles is still significant due to their bioavailability, mobility
and transformation in both the atmospheric and aquatic environment. Higher concentrations can also
pose toxicity problem when discharged into receiving waters. Hence, source reduction is a viable
option since the treatment and removal of finer particles (<45 mm) and pollutants associated with
them can not easily be accomplished by conventional BMPs. Therefore, a more advanced treatment
BMPs may be considered and that can be very costly.

Figure 3. Distribution of five heavy metals in relationship to seven different particle size ranges for
RDS samples collected from three land use areas

CONCLUSION
1. Land use can play an important role on particle size distribution of RDS. While the trend in
particle size distribution in all land use areas were the same, their mass distribution was
different. The results showed that the percent mass distribution of finer particles <45 m in
educational and residential areas were higher than that of intense traffic areas. The highest
mass distribution (up to about 80%) of particles for all land use areas were within the particle
size range of < 300 m.
2. The highest average concentrations of five heavy metals measured (Cd, Cu, Pb, Ni and Zn),
with the exception of Cd at the residential area, were related to the intense traffic land use. The
order of the average measured metal concentration in intense traffic and educational landuse
were Zn > Pb > Cu > Ni > Cd and in residential landuse were Pb > Zn > Ni > Cu > Cd.
3. The metal concentration generally increased with decreasing particle size. Maximum average
heavy metal concentrations frequently occurred in particle size smaller than 75 m.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The authors would like to thank Material and Soil Lab, Department of Civil Engineering, Sharif
University of Technology and Institute of Water and Energy, Sharif University of Technology for their
assistance in laboratory.

REFERENCES

Bian B. and Zhu W. (2008). Particle size distribution and pollutants in road-deposited sediments in
different areas of Zhenjiang, China. Environ Geochem Health, 31, 511-520.
De Miguel E., Llamas J. F., Chacon E., Berg T., Larssen S., Rgyset O. and et al. (1997). Origin and
patterns of distribution of trace elements in street dust: unleaded petrol and urban lead.
Atmospheric Environment, 31, 27332740.
Faiz Y., Tufail M., Chaudhry M. M. and Naila-Siddique (2009). Road dust pollution of Cd, Cu, Ni, Pb
and Zn along Islamabad Expressway, Pakistan. Microchemical journal, 92, 186-192.
Gourdeau J. (2004). Clouds and Particles. LaMP, Clermont-Ferrand, France.
Harrison R. M. and Wilson S. J. (1985). The chemical composition of highway drainage waters. I:
Major ions and selected trace metals. Sci of the Total Envir., 43, 63-77.
Hogan C. M., Draggan S. and Mineral Information Institute (2011). Nickel. Encyclopedia of Earth
January 18, 2008; Last revised Date September 21, 2011; Retrieved November 23, 2011.
http://www.epa.gov/otaq/regs/fuels/additive/lead/pr-lead.txt. 1996.
Jiries A. G., Hussein H. H., and Halash Z. (2001). The quality of water and sediments of street runoff
in Amman, Jordan. Hydrological Processes, 15, 815824.
Kayhanian M. and Givens B. (2011). Processing and analysis of micro particles. Environmental
Monitoring, 13, 2720-2727.
Mahdavi Damghani A., Savarypour Gh., Zand E. and Deihimfard R. (2008). Municipal solid waste
management in Tehran: Current practices, opportunities and challenges. Waste Management,
28, 929-934.
7

Makepeace D. K., Smith D. W. and Stanley S. J. (1995). Urban stormwater quality: summary of
contaminant data. Critical Rev. in Envir. Sci. and Technol, 25, 93-139.
McKenzie R. E., Wong M. C., Green G. P., Kayhanian M. and Young M. T. (2008). Size dependent
elemental composition of road particles. Sci of the Total Envir., 398, 145-153.
Municipality of Tehran, (2009). Tehran. Retrieved 09 04, 2009, from http://en.tehran.ir/
Sartor, J. D. and Boyd G. B. (1972). Water pollution aspects of street surface contaminants. U.S.
Environmental Protection Agency. EPA-R2-72-081.
Zhao H., Li X., Wang X. and Tian D. (2010). Grain size distribution of road-deposited sediment and
its contribution to heavy metal pollution in urban runoff in Beijing, China. J of Hazard
Material, 10, 183-203.

9th International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling

Belgrade 2012

Flow Forecasting in Urbanized Catchments with Data

Driven Models
Lloyd H. C. Chua
School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University, 50 Nanyang Avenue,
Singapore 639798. Tel: +65-6790-5249. e-mail: chcchua@ntu.edu.sg.

ABSTRACT
The motivation for this paper was to assess the suitability of data driven models, in
this case the artificial neural network (ANN), in the light of forecasting
applications in urban catchments. Results from two case studies are reported; the
first is for an experimental catchment measuring 25 m x 1 m and comprises an
impervious asphalt surface and the second, an urbanized catchment of area 5.6 km 2
in the Kranji reservoir catchment, Singapore. For the plane surface, the rainfall and
runoff data collected for ten natural storm events were analyzed and the ANN
model results compared with results obtained by a kinematic wave model (KW)
and an autoregressive moving average (ARMA) time series model. The results
show that ANN model forecasts compared favourably with KW and ARMA
forecasts. Specifically, the ANN was found to be superior to the KW and ARMA
models especially at longer lead times. This is due to the errors in the forecast
rainfall and loss estimates that are required by the KW, and the recursive nature of
the ARMA model especially for longer lead times. For the Kranji sub-catchment,
the results of this study show that discharge inputs significantly influence short
lead time forecasts while rainfall inputs help improve longer lead time forecasts. In
order to study the upper bound for longer lead time predictions, an approach
incorporating forecast rainfall as inputs to the ANN model was also investigated.

KEYWORDS
Data driven model, drainage, flow forecasting, urban catchment

INTRODUCTION

Artificial neural networks (ANN) have gained increasing popularity in modelling the rainfall-runoff
process in recent years. Neural networks have been demonstrated to be able to model the non-linear
rainfall-runoff relationship in many studies including the works by Riad et al. (2004), Kumar et al.
(2005) and Wu et al. (2005), carried out for a wide variety of watersheds. Another domain of ANN
application in rainfall-runoff modelling is in flow forecasting. Although there are increasing efforts in
combining physically-based distributed hydrological models with weather prediction models to

forecast runoff for a catchment (Koussis et al., 2003; Collischonn et al., 2005), these models demand
substantial hydrological and meteorological data, in addition to information on the characteristics of
the watershed. This is in comparison with the ANN which does not require prior knowledge of the
watershed characteristics, although both modelling paradigms would require rainfall and runoff data
for calibration. In this regard, it can be argued that the reduced requirement on data by the ANN
renders the ANN a more attractive option as a forecasting tool over deterministic models. In addition,
as is often the case in flow forecasting, the operation needs to be carried out in real-time; the
advantage in speed of the neural network over distributed models make neural networks attractive for
real-time flow forecasting. Some examples where ANNs have been used for flow forecasting include
works by Wu et al. (2005) and Mukerji et al. (2009). Comparative studies have also been conducted to
evaluate the performance of ANNs against existing flow forecasting methods (Elshorbagy et al., 2000,
Raghuwanshi et al., 2006, Nilsson et al., 2006, Kisi, 2004, Pereira-Filho and dos Santos, 2006 and
Huang et al., 2004. These studies show that the ANN, in general, is able to achieve either equal or
better accuracy against the models compared with (Sivakumar et al., 2002).
This paper investigates the forecast performance of the ANN for flow on an overland plane and a
small urbanized catchment, using various combinations of rainfall and discharge as input to the ANN
model. For the plane surface, the ANN model was compared against deterministic and time series
forecast models. The forecast capability of the ANN was next tested on a small urbanized catchment.
In order to extend the forecast lead-time, an approach incorporating forecast rainfall in the input of the
network, analogous to the combined physically-based distributed hydrological and weather prediction
models, was also investigated.

2
2.1

DATA USED
Experimental Plane

The data for the asphalt plane was obtained from an outdoor experimental station set up at the
Nanyang Technological University. A schematic diagram of the experimental station is provided in
Figure 1(a.) and further details of the experimental station can be found in Wong (2008). The
experimental station comprises four 25 m long by 1 m wide testing sections. The test section chosen
for this study is the asphalt-lined overland plane with a slope of 2%, surrounded by a 1 m high
concrete wall along the two longer sides and the upstream end of the section. Runoff was allowed to
discharge into calibrated weigh tanks to record the flow at the downstream end of the test section. The
weigh tanks were calibrated prior to use, using an electromagnetic flow meter. Two rain gauges,
placed at 6.25 m from each end of the test section, were used to record rainfall. The rainfall data was
checked for consistency and the average rainfall was used in the analysis. Rainfall and runoff data
were recorded at 15 sec intervals. Data for ten storm events were obtained for the period between
October-December 2002. The time of concentration for the overland plane is estimated to range from
2.1 4.1 min.
2.2

Kranji Sub-Catchment

Rainfall and flow data collected from a sub-catchment in Kranji, situated in the north-western part of
Singapore (see Figure 1(b.)), was analyzed for this study. The sub-catchment has an area of about 5.6
km2, and the land use consists of 33% high density residential area and the other areas of the study are
undeveloped and mainly covered by vegetation. Surface runoff in the study area is served by a
concrete-lined drainage system, and the runoff from the catchment is inevitably flashy due to the short
but intense tropical rains and highly channelized drainage system. A gauging station, installed at CP1

is equipped with a Sigma 950 submerged pressure area velocity flow meter and a tipping bucket rain
gauge. Both the rainfall depth and flow measurements were taken at 5-minute intervals and stored in a
data logger. Time series of rainfall depths and flows collected were used in the present study.
(a.)

(b.)

Figure 1. Schematic diagram of (a.) asphalt plane, and (b.) Kranji sub-catchment.

3
3.1

METHODOLOGY
Models Used

Three models were used for the analysis of the data for the asphalt plane. These are the autoregressive
moving average (ARMA) model, the kinematic wave (KW) model and the ANN. The ARMA and KW
models were used as a baseline to validate the ANN results in the case of a well-defined catchment.
Only the ANN model was used for flow forecasts in the Kranji sub-catchment, studying the impacts of
the inputs use on forecast accuracy.
The general formula for the ARMA model can be stated as:

t c1t 1 cii t d1 t 1 d j j

(1)

where t, the predicted value, is linearly related to the past observations, t-1 i and is the error, i,
and j are the order of the series and c1 ... ci, and d1 dj are constants obtained by optimization. Final
model selection was based on an evaluation of the root mean square error (RMSE), Akaike's
Information Criterion (AIC) and the Mean Absolute Error (MAE). The optimization procedure and
selection of the final model was carried out using the System Identification Toolbox provided in
MATLAB (2008).
The kinematic wave equations for flow on an overland plane are:

y q

in
t x

(2a)

q y

(2b)

where y is the flow depth, t is time, q is the discharge per unit width of the overland plane, x is
distance along the plane in the direction of flow, in is the net rainfall,
3

S /n, 5 / 3, S is the

overland slope, and n (= 0.011) is the Mannings roughness coefficient of the overland surface. For
forecast applications, the forecast rainfall int L is defined as the averaged rainfall intensity for the
previous L time intervals (Brath et al, 2002), given by:
t

int L

in

(3)

k t L

A multi-layer feed-forward back propagation ANN incorporating the Levenberg-Marquardt learning

algorithm was used for training the network. The network consists of three layers, namely an input
layer, a hidden layer and an output layer. The number of neurons in the input layer depends on the
number of input variables used. The number of neurons adopted for the hidden layer was determined
by trial, while the output layer was configured to give only one forecast flow as output. The early
stopping technique was used to prevent over-fitting. The tan-sigmoid transfer function was used for
the neurons in the hidden layer while linear transfer functions were used for the output neurons. The
development of the ANN models was executed using the neural network toolbox in MATLAB (2008).
3.2

Inputs to ANN Model

The cross-correlation technique was used to identify the appropriate number of time lags of rainfalls to
be included as inputs to the ANN models for the plane surface and the Kranji sub-catchment.
Similarly, auto-correlation was carried out on the flow time series to identify the appropriate time lags
for flow to be included as input to the ANN models.
Table 1(a) shows the 3 different combinations of inputs adopted for the plane surface. The ANN9R
model uses rainfall (R) only as inputs, ANN2Q uses discharge (Q) only as inputs and ANN9R1Q uses
both rainfall and discharge as inputs. The last group of ANN models represents the traditional method
of specifying inputs when the ANN model is to be used for forecasting when online measurements of
rainfall and discharge are available. Distinguishing the input types between rainfall only, discharge
only and a combination of rainfall and discharge allows one to study in isolation the effect on forecast
results by the different ANN models. The forecasted flows are Qt+1, Qt+2, Qt+4 and Qt+8 corresponding
to lead times of 0.25 min, 0.5 min, 1 min and 2 min, respectively.
Table 1 Inputs used in ANN models: (a.) Overland plane, (b.) Kranji sub-catchment.

(a.)

Model

(b.)

Inputs

Model

Inputs

ANN9R

Rt, Rt-1, , Rt-8

Rt, Rt-1, , Rt-8

ANN9R1Q

Rt, Rt-1, , Rt-8, Qt

Qt, Qt-1, Qt-2

ANN2Q

Qt, Qt-1

RQ

Rt, Rt-1, , Rt-8, Qt, Qt-1, Qt-2

RiQ

Rt+i, Rt+i-1, , Rt+i-8, Qt, Qt-1, Qt-2

Table 1(b) shows the 4 different combinations of inputs adopted for the Kranji sub-catchment. R, Q

and RQ networks provide forecast flow using measured rainfall and flow data. These models forecast
the flows Qt+1, Qt+3, Qt+6, Qt+8 and Qt+10, corresponding to forecast lead-times of 5 min, 15 min, 30
min, 40 min and 50 min, respectively. RiQ networks incorporate rainfall forecasts in the input. The
rainfall forecasts are assumed to be perfect, providing an upper bound to the results predicted by the

ANN models. Thus, when rainfall forecasts are considered, a rainfall forecast up to the t+2 time-step
(10 min) in the R2Q network, only output flow forecasts for L t + 3 (15 min) will be presented.

4
4.1

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Experimental Plane

The Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient (NS), root mean square error (RMSE), mean absolute error (MAE) and
coefficient of determination (R2) values for the different models are compared in Figure 2. The results
obtained from the Constant (or Nave) model is also included as a benchmark, where the Constant
model states that Qt+L = Qt. The error bars indicate the range in results obtained for the 10 storm
events. Figure 2 shows that the KW and ANN models perform adequately well for forecasts up to a
lead time of 2 mins (Qt+8), which is estimated to be approximately half the time of concentration for
the overland plane. In addition, all ANN and KW models perform better than the Constant model
except the ANN9R model for Qt+1 and the KW model for Qt+8 forecasts. This highlights the point that
the ANN9R model is poor at short term forecasts. In addition, the KW model performs poorly for Qt+8
forecast, presumably due to the errors in rainfall forecast, since rainfall forecast errors are expected to
increase as lead time increases. Comparing between the ANN and ARMA models, it is evident that
ANN9R model predictions are inferior to ARMA model forecasts for Qt+1 and Qt+2, where it is
observed that NS and R2 are smaller for the ANN9R model compared to the ARMA model, and
RMSE and MAE are larger for the ANN9R model compared to the ARMA model. In general, the
goodness-of-fit and error statistics for the KW and ARMA models are similar up to Qt+4 forecasts.
However, NS and R2, and RMSE and MAE are higher and lower, respectively, for the ARMA model
than the KW model for Qt+8 forecasts. Comparing between the ANN and KW models, it is evident that
the ANN9R1Q model is the best since the goodness-of-fit and error statistics compare favourably
against the KW model over the entire range of forecasted flows (Q t+1 to Qt+8), although the ANN9R
model appears to perform marginally better than the ANN9R1Q model for Qt+8 forecast.
Thus, comparing the goodness-of-fit and error statistics between the ANN models with the KW model,
it can be summarized that: (i) ANN9R1Q and ANN2Q models are superior to the KW model for all
forecast ranges while the ANN9R model is better only for long-term forecasts. The superiority of the
ANN model forecasts is significant because the model parameters for the KW model are well defined
and hence forecast errors arising from a wrong prescription of model parameters will not be
significant; the greatest source of error for the KW model will probably be related to the rainfall
forecasts. This is a disadvantage of the KW model; in comparison, the ANN model does not require
rainfall forecasts. (ii) ANN model forecasts improve when discharge is used as input to the model. The
inclusion of discharge as an input to the ANN models implies that discharge measurements must be
available during the model simulation stage. This is a disadvantage of the ANN method, as the KW
model does not have this requirement. In this regard, in terms of model inputs, a more equitable
comparison would suggest that the KW be compared with the ANN9R model, since both of these
models use rainfall only for simulations. In this case, the KW model results are better at short-term
forecasts but poorer at long-term forecasts.

(a)

(b)
1

1
0.8

0.8

R2

0.6

NS

0.4
0.2

0.6
0.4

0
-0.2

Qt+1

Qt+2

Qt+4

0.2

Qt+8

Qt+1

(c)

Qt+8

(d)

0.3

0.15

MAE (L/s)

RMSE (L/s)

Qt+4

Forecast Discharge

Forecast Discharge

0.2
0.1
0

Qt+2

Qt+1

Qt+2

Qt+4

0.1
0.05
0

Qt+8

ANN9R
ANN9R1Q
ANN2Q
KW
Constant
ARMA

Qt+1

Qt+2

Qt+4

Qt+8

Forecast Discharge

Forecast Discharge

Figure 2. Errors in forecast by different models. (a.) NS, (b.) R2, (c.) RMSE (L/s), and (d.) MAE (L/s).

4.2

Kranji Sub-Catchment

The NS values obtained by the various ANN models are compared in Figure 3. The NS for the Q
network is higher than NS for the R network at shorter lead-times, and the NS for the R network is
higher than NS for the Q network at longer lead times; although it should be mentioned that NS values
for the R and Q networks are both generally low at longer lead-times. The RQ network inherits the
positive features of the R and Q networks, and most ANN studies on flow forecasting reported in the
literature adopt R and Q as inputs. The difference between the R and Q networks in the NS versus
forecast lead time behaviour is significant. For the Q network, when the flow forecast lead-time, L is
small, the forecast flow (Qt+L) is strongly correlated with the latest value of flow, in this case Qt, used
in the input, and the NS is high. As L increases, the correlation between Qt and Qt+L decreases,
resulting in the reduction in NS with increase in L. For the R network, NS is relatively insensitive to L
when L = 10min. The initially constant value of NS up to L = 10 min is due to the delay of the
catchment in response to rainfall, since the flow must take a finite time to reach the outlet. NS begins
to decrease when L > 15 min, where it is noted that the decrease in NS with L is more gradual
compared to the Q network. The findings from Figure 2 can be summarized by two main points.
Firstly, it is not sufficient to use either rainfall or flow only as input, a combination of rainfall and flow
is needed; rainfall inputs improve flow forecast at longer lead times while flow inputs improve flow
forecast at shorter lead times. Secondly, adopting NS 0.8 as a criterion for a reasonable fit, the R

network is unacceptable since the NS for R forecasts are less than 0.8. In addition, Q and RQ networks
provide satisfactory forecasts up to approximately 12 min and 16 min, respectively.
1

RQ
R
Q

NS
CE

0.8
0.6
0.4
0.2

10

20

30

40

50

Forecast flow lead time, L (min)

Figure 3. Forecast errors for various inputs.

Analyses using measured discharge and assuming perfect forecast inputs of rainfall were carried out
for the R2Q, R5Q, R7Q, and R9Q networks, where perfect rainfall forecasts of 2, 5, 7 and 9 steps ahead
(corresponding to 10, 25, 35 and 45 mins) are used as inputs and the outputs are the discharges at 3, 6,
8 and 10 time steps (corresponding to 15, 30, 40 and 50 mins) ahead. As shown in Figure 5, the NS
values of the forecasted flows improve with the inclusion of forecast rain, since the NS values for all
the RiQ networks lie above the NS values for RQ network. For each of the networks considered, the
best NS attained are NS = 0.85, 0.79, 0.79 and 0.78 for the R2Q, R5Q, R7Q, and R9Q networks. This is
lower than NS = 0.96 obtained for the 1-step ahead forecast by the RQ network. With 2 steps ahead
rainfall forecasts (R2Q), the forecast lead time is increased from 16 min to 21 min, for NS = 0.8.
Furthermore, to achieve NS = 0.8 for L = 40 min forecasts, rainfall inputs of up to 7 steps ahead are
required.

NS

NS = 0.8

Forecast lead time (min)

Figure 5. NS for 3, 6, 8 and 10 steps ahead flow forecasts.

CONCLUSIONS

The following can be concluded from this study:

1.

Results from the analyses of the asphalt plane data showed that ANN model results compared
favourably with runoff predictions by the KW and ARMA model. Comparing between the ANN
models where different inputs were used, the inclusion of the discharge as input was found to
greatly improve the performance of the ANN. However, model improvements were less
significant for longer forecast lead times. The ANN model which had rainfall as the only inputs
performed better at long-term forecasts but poorer at short-term forecasts, compared to the KW
model. The poorer performance of the KW model at longer lead times is probably due to the
forecast rainfall errors. Inclusion of discharge significantly improves short lead time forecasts
for the ANN.

2.

The relative performance of the ANN models with rainfall alone, discharge alone and rainfall
and discharge as inputs were confirmed when tested on data collected from a real catchment.
Analyses using perfect forecast inputs of rainfall showed that with 2 steps ahead rainfall
forecasts, the forecast lead time is increased from 16 min to 21 min, for NS = 0.8. Furthermore,
to achieve NS = 0.8 for L = 40 min forecasts rainfall inputs of up to 7 steps ahead is required.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Funding received from the DHI-NTU Water & Environment Research Centre and Education Hub and
the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Nanyang Technological University is gratefully
acknowledged.

LIST OF REFERENCES

Barth, A., Montanari, A. and Toth, E., (2002). Neural Networks and Non-Parametric Methods for
Improving Real-Time Flood Forecasting Through Conceptual Hydrological Models. Hydrol.
Earth Sys. Sci., 6(4), 627 640.
Collischonn, W., Haas, R., Anderolli, I., Tucci, C.E.M. (2005). Forecasting River Uruguay flow
using rainfall forecasts from a regional weather prediction model. J. Hydrol, 305, 87-98.
Elshorbagy, A., Simonovic, S.P., Panu, U.S. (2000). Performance evaluation of artificial neural
networks for runoff prediction. J. Hydrologic Eng., 5(4), 424-427.
Huang, W., Xu, B., Chan-Hilton, A. (2004). Forecasting flows in Apalachicola river using neural
networks. Hydrolog. Process., 18, 2545-2564.
Kisi, O. (2004). River flow modeling using artificial neural networks. J. Hydrologic Eng., 9(1), 6063.
Koussis, A.D., Lagouvardos, K., Mazi, K., Kotroni, V., Sitzmann, D., Lang, J., Zaiss, H., Buzzi, A.,
Malguzzi, P. (2003). Flood forecasts for urban basin with integrated hydro-meteorological
model. J. Hydrologic Eng., 7(1), 1-11.
Kumar, A.R.S., Sudheer, K.P., Jain, S.K., Agarwal, P.K. (2005). Rainfall-runoff modeling using
artificial neural networks: comparison of network types. Hydrolog. Process., 19, 1277-1291.
Mukerji A., Chatterjee, C. and Raghuwanshi, A. S. (2009). Flood Forecasting Using ANN, NeiroFuzzy and Neuro-GA Models. J. Hydrologic Eng., 14(6), 647-652.

Nilsson, P., Uvo, C.B., Berndtsson, R. (2006). Monthly runoff simulation: Comparing and combining
conceptual and neural network models. J. Hydrol, 321, 344-363.
Pereira Filho, A.J., dos Santos, C.C. (2006). Modeling a densely urbanized watershed with artificial
neural network, weather radar and telemetric data. J. Hydrol, 317, 31-48.
Riad, S., Mania, J., Bouchaou, L., Najjar, Y. (2004). Predicting catchment flow in a semi-arid region
via an artificial neural network technique. Hydrolog. Process., 18, 2389-2394.
Raghuwanshi, N.S., Singh, R., Reddy, L.S. (2006). Runoff and sediment yield modeling using
artificial neural networks: upper Siwane river, India. J. Hydrologic Eng., 11(1), 71-79.
Sivakumar, B., Jayawardena, A.W., Fernando, T.M.K.G. (2002). River flow forecasting: use of
phase-space reconstruction and artificial neural networks approaches. J. Hydrol., 265, 225-245.
Wong T.S.W. (2008). Optimum Rainfall Interval and Mannings Roughness Coefficient for Runoff
Simulation. J. Hydrol. Eng., ASCE, 13(11), 1097 1102.
Wu, J.S., Han, J., Annambhotla, S., Bryant, S. (2005). Artificial neural networks for forecasting
watershed runoff and stream flows. J. Hydrologic Eng., 10(3), 216-222.

9th International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling

Belgrade 2012

Urban Drainage Simulation Model Sensitivity Analysis

On Runoff Control Elements
eljka Ostoji1 , Sanja Mareta2, Duan Prodanovi3, Ljiljana Jankovi4 ,
Sran Tomi5
1,2

Hidroprojekat saobraaj, Serbia, zeljka.ostojic@hps.rs, sanja.marceta @hps.rs

University of Belgrade Faculty of Civil Engineering, Belgrade, Serbia,
5
ACO, Belgrade, Serbia,
3,4

ABSTRACT
In current design practice, regardless if classic or sustainable drainage concept
approach is applied in modeling of rainfall-runoff process, various drainage
elements are used (gullies, catch basins, grates or slotted inlets with various types
of outlets). These elements are drainage controls and their characteristics have
significant impact on capacity and system performance. The study of hydraulic
characteristics of these elements is mostly performed in simplified laboratory
conditions while obtained performance data are used in the modeling process of the
real and complex drainage systems.
Unfortunately, in most cases, these laboratory tests do not consider the use of these
elements in terms of contemporary sustainable drainage, where it is allowed to
retain part of the water on the streets and where dual drainage concept is used,
which allows two-way flow through those control elements during the pressurized
flows in the collectors. Also, modeling the system using an alternative concept
includes drainage water infiltration at the source, which requires the application of
new drainage elements in modeling (e.g. semi-permeable pavements and asphalt),
and only some of those elements are built-in the commercial software packages for
the storm water runoff modeling.
This paper examines the sensitivity of the commercial urban drainage model
StormNET regarding the characteristics of the drainage elements used for surface
drainage. The paper analyzes the results of the model and the uncertainty of the
obtained results (flow, velocity), for different flow conditions (with free surface or
pressurized flow, with or without ponding) in urban catchments of different sizes,
as a function of the degree of ignorance (or error) of the individual drainage control
elements parameters.

KEYWORDS
drainage control elements, StormNET ACO-Hydro

INTRODUCTION

The development of a storm drainage design in urban areas requires a trial and error approach, with
the aim to limit the amount of water flowing along the gutters or ponding at the low areas to rates and
quantities that will not interfere with traffic. The most destructive effects of an inadequate drainage
system are damage to surrounding or adjacent properties, deterioration of the roadway components,
traffic hazard and delays caused by excessive, unnecessary ponding in sags or excessive flow along
roadways, as well as more frequent overflow from combined sewer systems to the receiving waters.
An urban simulation drainage model is based on link-node concept and it consists of three sub models
(hydrological model - simulating precipitation, evaporation and infiltration; surface runoff routing
model - simulating hydraulics on the catchments surface; and pipe flow model-simulating the
hydraulics in the pipe system). The link-node concept is very useful in representing flow control
devices with the possibility to represent branched or looped networks, backwater due to tidal or nontidal conditions, free surface flow, pressurized flow or surcharge, flow reversals, flow transfers by
weirs, orifices, pumping and storage. Each of sub models can be applied with different complexity and
accuracy, depending on the problem that should be solved with the model, and calibration
possibilities.
Estimation of model output uncertainties is based on errors and uncertainty contributions of the input
data and model parameters as a result of used conventional deterministic modeling approach, as a
starting point of the modeling process, sensitivity analysis, field measurements, literary reviews and
model testing .
This paper presents the model of existing drainage system of warehouse in Kraljevo, with analysis of
the effect of input data variations on the results. Two rain gages were analysed:
-

Rain gage with the return period of 2 years, duration 10 minutes, precipitation intensity 206
l/s/ha

Rain gage with the return period of 10 years, duration 10 minutes, precipitation intensity 311
l/s/ha

For each of the applied rain events, the hydraulics calculation were done for the most loaded trench
drains in both Hydro - ACO program, for non-uniform flow with lateral inflow, and in commercial
package STORM NET (with different channel shapes and roughness coefficients, ponding and
downstream conditions). Comparing obtained results with elements of the sensitivity analysis was
done only for the rain gage with the return period of 2 years.

2
2.1

METHODOLOGY
Storm drainage inlet structures modeling

Each of the drainage element of real drainage system should have the representative object in link
node conceptual model, or at least control rule based on it's behaviour in real system. Stormwater
inlets and pipe drains have to be designed together because two systems interact as follows:
1. If there is insufficient inlet capacity the pipes will not flow full, and
2. Backwater effects from the pipe drainage system may reduce the effectiveness of the inlets, or
cause them to surcharge instead of acting as inlets.
The complexity of these interactions is such that in all but the simplest situations, the design task is
best handled by computer models.
2.2

The surface inlet structures

The surface inlet structures considered are grate inlets, curb opening inlets, slotted inlets and
combination inlets. These elements present elements of point drainage system and allow surface water
to enter the storm drainage system. They also serve as access points for cleaning and inspection.
The surface inlet structures can be modeled as special structures with one by-pass link for surface
runoff and the other link to the pipe drains, if they are mounted on grade, or as special structures with
one link to the pipe drains, if they are mounted on sag. Design of storm drain inlet is often neglected or
receives little attention during the design of storm drainage system, although it directly impacts both
the rate of water removal from the roadway (if the storm drain inlet is unable to capture the design
runoff into the sewer system, roadway flooding and possible hazardous conditions for traffic may
occur during a storm event ), and the degree of utilization of the storm drainage system (oversizing of
sewer pipes downstream of the inlet since the inlet cannot capture the design flow).
Manufacturers of drainage equipment have independently measured, in experiments, the hydraulic
intake capacities of drain grates. Tests are usually carried out under various flow rates and catchments
approach slopes, until bypass occurred (point at which liquids would pass across grate). The angle of
approach section perpendicular to the grate can be critical for grating intake performance. The greater
the angle the greater the velocity of liquid is and the geometry (slot shape and dimension) can have a
significant effect on the flow capture (splash velocity). This grate slot geometry effectiveness changes
with the shape.
Unfortunately, in most cases, laboratory tests do not consider the use of these elements in the
sustainable drainage system, where retaining of some water on the streets is allowed and where dual
drainage concept is used, which allows two-way flow through those control elements during the
pressurized flows in collectors. The typical result of laboratory testing is given at the figure 1, without
considering local conditions shown in the figure 2.

Figure 1: Typical grate performance- Adopted from ACO

Figure 2: StormNET can model the storm drain inlet approach flows, inflows, bypass flows,
upwelling and overflows, as well as upstream and downstream pipe flows Adopted from StormNET
USERS MANUAL
2.3

Grating trench drains with the outlet elements

The grating trench drains with outlet elements presen elements of linear drainage system. Usually the
trench drain reaches hydraulic capacity before grate intake hydraulics affects performance, and the
outlet is not the restricting factor.
However, occasionally grate hydraulics become the determining factor in designer practice,
particularly if catchment slopes are large and catchment runoff quantity is high, due to insufficient
4

grate clear opening, excessive liquid quantities, or steep slope perpendicular to the grate. ACO
developed the Grating Intake Calculator (GIC) providing the information on the intake efficiency of
the chosen grate. If the required liquid intake is greater than the grates performance, the extent of
bypass (or failure) will be calculated. The required input datas are length of trench run, length and
width of catchments area, surrounding pavement/surface type, rainfall intensity, perpendicular
approach to trench and preferred grate type.
Trench drain manufacturers usually claim that trenches can be sized according to the principles of
steady uniform flow (Manning s culvert) an over simplistic approach typically used for the design of
underground pipes. Steady uniform flow does not account for the continuous lateral inflow entering
the trench (through the grate) along its length, therefore results can be misleading and potentially
dangerous (flood and damage). For calculations using steady uniform flow estimation of flow capacity
is based on Q=v*A, and slope is multiplier in Manning-s equation (Q=(1/n) AR2/3 x S1/2). For flat
gradients slope is zero and water depths cannot be calculated, therefore trench cannot be sized,
velocity tends towards zero, and water depths are overestimated, resulting in larger, more costly
trench. When slope is large, water depth are underestimated. Trench size is undersized - resulting in
flooding. Non-uniform flow, accounting for liquid being carried in a trench, plus the constant addition
of liquid collected through the grates along the trench run - lateral intake, determine trench hydraulic
capacity .
Hydro is the name given to the ACO computer program used to model the behavior of a trench drain
according to the principles of spatially varied flow (steady, non-uniform flow). The program is driven
from a set of non linear equations and its algorithm is calibrated experimentally. A characteristic of
non-uniform flow is that liquid velocity and height change at successive cross sections along the
trench. Also, this program is able to represent the effects of slope and run length. Slope can be
introduced in model by existing pavement with natural fall, a stepped configuration, by introducing
slope along the base of the trench run or by combination of these methods. Slope increases the
velocity of liquid within the trench drain and therefore improves hydraulic efficiency, as can be seen
in the Manning-s equation. In modeling hydraulic performance of grated trench drains, the assumption
often made is that the outlet is not a restricting factor. Designers should ensure the outlet or subsequent
pipe work is not undersized and acts as a constriction to the grated trench drain. Outlet from trench
drains (catchments water) must be less than the pipe capacity to avoid backing up of water and
flooding. Also the position of the outlet on the trench length is important.
The grated trench drain is ultimately connected to the underground pipe system. If designed with
inappropriate end outlet, the trench may reach capacity sooner unless larger and more costly grated
trench drain and/or more outlets are used. If there is zero ground slopes along the run and underground
pipe work position is fixed, the trench drain can be designed with a central outlet. Run lengths to the
outlet are therefore shorter and less likely to exceed capacity and flood. This allows a smaller, more
economical grated trench drain and/or fewer outlets to be positioned along the run to drain the same
volume. If the grated trench drain is part of the catchment system that requires water to be held by the
grated trench drain for a period of time - such as sustainable drainage system - this pipe can be used as
a constriction.

End outlet - pipe connected

horizontally at the end of
the trench. Offers lowest
outlet capacity.

Bottom outlet - pipe

connected vertically out
of the bottom of the
trench. Offers improved
outlet capacity due to
gravity.

In-line pit - usually same

width as trench, but
deeper. Allows use of
rubbish basket to collect
debris. Offers superior
outlet capacity as larger
pipes can be connected and
increased depth gives
significant head of water
pressure above pipe outlet

Universal Pit - large pit

wider and deeper than
trench. Allows use of
rubbish basket to collect
debris. Offers best outlet
capacity as very large
pipes can be used and
increased depth gives
significant head of water
pressure above pipe outlet.

Figure 3: Size and type of the outlet adopted from ACO

In StormNET orifices are used to model outlet and diversion structures in drainage systems, which are
typically openings in the wall of a manhole, detention pond or control gate. They are internally
represented in StormNET as a link connecting two nodes. Orifices can be used as a detention pond
outlets under all types of flow routing. If not attached to a detention pond, they can only be used in
drainage networks that are analyzed with Hydrodynamic Routing. The orifice flow computed by
StormNET can account for tailwater submergence effects. An orifice can have either a circular or
rectangular shape, be located either at the bottom or along the side of the upstream node, and have a
flap gate to prevent backflow.

Figure 4: Orifice acting as the weir and orifice adopted from StormNET manual

As shown in Figure 4, adopted from StormNET manual , an orifice will initially act as a weir until the
top of the orifice is submerged. The discharge through the orifice for unsubmerged orifice flow is
computed using the weir equation. The flow then transitions to a fully submerged orifice flow.

WAREHOUSE KRALJEVO CASE STUDY

The real, existing drainage system of warehouse complex in Kraljevo designed by IDPROJECT and
built in year 2009 was modeled in StormNET. The area of complex is approximately 1,5 ha, the
network is branched, divided into 12 sections and collection and evacuation of storm water from all
traffic areas, including roofs and parking lots within the complex is predicted. The final recipient is an
existing channel running around the existing custom house complex. All roads have gutter sections
without special depression (unilateral slope with edge). Point drainage elements are grate inlets and
roof vertical gutters, and linear drainage elements are trench drains.
During the first steps in design process, thanks to good collaboration between ACO and
IDPROJECT, dimension and hydraulic capacity of all trench drains on complex were examined in
the Hydro - ACO program for nonuniform flow with lateral inflow. The rain gage with return period 2
and 10 years, intensity 206 l/s/ha and 311 l/s/ha were considered. After many trials the final
dimensions for linear trench drains have been adopted. These dimensions were the input data for the
StormNET model, and they are shown in the following table.

Table 1 Trench drain lengths, slopes, height and width adopted from ACO calculation and
IDPROJEKT design
Channel

4b

4c

Height (m) 0.355 0.155 0.155 0.40 0.40 0.20 0.16 0.18
Width (m)

0.15

0.15

0.15

0.20 0.20 0.20 0.15 0.10

L (m)

65

61

58

19

21

58.5 45

37.5

I (%)

0.42

0.7

1.06

0.8

0.8

0.7

1.12

0.7

With the basic presumption that the channel flow is not restricted by the capacity of the continuing
sewer system, the results for rain with return periods 2 and 10 years are shown in tables 2 and 3.
Table 2 Results of hydraulic calculation rain with return period 2 years
Channel

4b

4c

Outflow (l/s)

53.64

17.87

18.97

62.86

87.18 16.26 18.59

16.05

Max velocity (m/s)

2.3

1.59

1.79

2.07

2.31

1.71

Channel
(%)

capacity 125.96 100.73 142.41 54.89

Minimum
board (mm)

free- -61.21

-2.28

-46.75

1.55

1.61

74.93 94.73 108

155.61 87.17 6.81

-10.18

103.42
-5.99

Table 3 Results of hydraulic calculation rain with return period 10 years

Channel

4b

4c

Outflow (l/s)

81.02

26.96

28.65

94.97

131.88

24.51

28.03

24.23

Max velocity
(m/s)

2.59

1.79

2.02

2.37

2.64

1.75

1.81

1.94

Channel
capacity (%)

189.5

151.52

215.56

83.34

110.55

138.91

163.8

155.92

Minimum
freeboard (mm)

-183.56

-50.84

-113.62

59.08

-39.33

-39.33

-60.97

-60.97

The model in StormNET was done using IDF curves and rational theory in hydrology part of model
for defining runoff process. Appropriate catchment areas have been jointed to the network nodes
following this procedure:
1. Roof vertical gutters is connected to junctions, representing catch basins
2. Some of road surfaces are connected to grate inlets mounted on grade with connections to
pipe network and by-pass links
3. Some of road surfaces are connected to grate inlets mounted on sag with connections to pipe
network and with no by-pass links
4. Some of road surfaces are connected to junctions representing the upstream edge of linear
trench drain and detention ponds representing the downstream edge of linear trench drain
Pipe diameters, lengths, slopes, position of manholes for underground part of drainage system was
taken from IDPROJECT design. Storm sewer was constructed of PVC sewer pipes and fittings with
diameters DN500mm, DN400mm and DN300mm bottom tube with the slope varying from 0,3-2.7%.
The depth of the trench ranges from 1.5-3.3 m, and total network length is 897 m. Total of 32 AB
manholes F1000 mm was provided in the network. The connection pipes for street gullies and roof
gutters are DN160 mm.
Grate inlets on grade are connected to each other with gutter sections representing the real road cross
section, regardless the distance between them (without additional nodes). The complete length of the
grated trench drain is represented as one open channel; the higher point of the grated trench inlet is
modeled as junction, and the lower point as detention pond. The lower point of the grated trench inlet
is connected with the conduit system by orifice link, representing the connection pipe.
The drainage network is shown in the Figure 5.

K7-2

KAN7

K7-1

C-91
A-23 C-52

A-K7.2
Reg-1

C-89
J-17
C-54

A-K7.1

C-16
SL-24
A-24

C-74

J-KP7
C-15
J-16 C-108

C-53

SL-21

C-92
SL-22

SL-23

C-90

JSL-23
C-64

SL-20

C-51
A-21C-93

A-22
JSL-22
C-65 J-15 C-66

JSL-21

K-1.1

C-50

J-14

A-20

J-13
C-13 K-3.1

K-2.1
A-K2.1

A-K1.1

C-32

C-14

A-K3.1

A-25
C-55
JSL-25
SL-25

C-94

C-12

C-62
J-25

C-56 SL-27
JSL-27
A-27
A-26

OLUK5

J-24

J-12
KAN3

KAN2

KAN1

OLUK3

A-19

C-61C-109
SL-26
C-58

C-63
A-28

A-2

A-K.1.2

C-57 SL-28
J-28
C-24

C-25
A-1

J-18
C-34
SL-1
C-59
C-99

OLUK1

J-19

C-18

C-17

C-10

A-4a

OLUK4

SL-2
JSL-2

C-20
J-20

J-9

C-100
JSL-3
C-71
C-36
C-9
SL-3
J-8
A-3
C-8

OKUL2
J-11

C-35

J-10

A-K2.2

C-101

C-7

SL-4
C-37J-7

KAN-1.1

K-1.2
KAN-4b
K-4b
KAN-2.1

K-2.2
KAN-4c
K-4c.1
A-K4c

Out-1

J-1

J-29
C-31

C-95
C-1

C-29
C-98

J-32
C-45
SL-15
OLUK7

J-30

A-18
C-48J-2SL-18

C-84

A-15

C-30
K-5.2

J-23

C-22

C-38

C-68
J-27

C-6
C-102

SL-6
C-27
JSL-6
C-69
C-39
JSL-7
C-60

C-107
SL-7
A-7
C-5

JSL-10
C-70
C-103
SL-9

C-42

C-104
SL-10

KAN-5

K-5.1

A-6

A-5
C-106
SL-5

J-6
C-41

SL-19
JSL-19

C-11
KAN-3.1
Weir-1
C-28

A-K4b

OLUK6

J-22

C-21
J-21

A-4
C-19

KAN-4a
K-4a

C-49

A-K3.2 K-3.2
C-33
K-4c.2

A-K5.1

A-K5.2

C-67
A-K6.2

KAN-6

C-26
J-5

K-6.1
C-4

C-96

SL-17
A-17
J-31 C-47
JSL-17
C-83

A-K6.1

J-26
C-40
A-8 SL-8

C-2

C-97
K-6.2
C-46

SL-16

A-16

J-3

C-3

J-4
C-44

C-43

C-105
SL-11

SL-12
A-12

A-11

A-10

A-9

Figure 5: Scheme of drainage network in KRALJEVO warehouse

RESULTS OF MODELING AND SENSITIVITY ANALYSIS

Modeling of this real drainage system shows that sizing of underground conduits has been properly
done. Hydraulic profile of the main street storm sewer J6-Out1 is shown on figure 6, for rain with
return period of 2 years. Velocities, slopes and maximum depths are in accordance with the
recommended limits in all sections of this conduit. Pressurized flow appears in downstream section,
but without negative impact to other parts of the network.

Figure 6: Hydraulic profile of main street storm sewer J6-Out1

9

Some problems in modeling process are related to proper representation of catchment surfaces that can
hardly affect runoff and/or flooding process. If we pay particular attention to simulation results we can
see flooding in upstream node K7-1 of channel K7, without surcharging the downstream section. The
hydraulic profile of channel K7, obtained from StormNET is shown on figure 7, and velocity and flow
rate diagram for the same channel obtained from Hydro-ACO program is shown on figure 8.

Figure 7: Hydraulic profile of channel KAN7 in StormNET

Hydraulic calculation for ACO DRAIN channel systems

(Based on the differential equation for steady, non-uniform, flow in open channels)
Project: Carinarnica Kraljev o
Design Office:
Run Identity: 7

Clear Height (mm) 180

Flow Depth (mm) 42

180
72

180
94

0
50
100
150

180
113

180
131

(mm)

180
147
37.5 m
1.12 %

Datum

180
161

180
173

180
182

180
185

180
114
0
50
100
150
(mm)

(m/s)
2

(l/s)
20

1.5

15

15

10

10

0.5

Input

Liquid:
Kinematic viscosity (cm/s):
ACO DRAIN System:
Roughness coefficient:
Outlet type:

(l/s)
20

10

15

Outflow (l/s): 16.05

Minimum freeboard (mm): -5.99, X = 33.18 m
Channel capacity (%): 103.42

25

30

Vertical scale 1:
Horizontal scale 1:

Operator:
ACO gradevinski elementi doo

NOTE:

0
m

35

Copyright ACO drain passavant.

Unauthorised reproduction is strictly prohibited.

Flow velocity (m/s)

Outflow (l/s)

Water
0.01
V 100 Multiline
95

Results

20

The calculation assumes that the channel flow is not

restricted by the capacity of the continuing sewer system.

Mala pruga 39a

11283 Beograd
Phone: +381 11 37777 91
Facsimile: +381 11 3757 618
E-mail: aco@aco.rs
Internet: www.aco.rs

CopyrightACO Eastern Group

Figure 8: Hydraulic profile of channel KAN7 in HYDRO-ACO program

10

Date:

27.03.2012

Comparison of these hydraulic profiles induced division of trench drain into 5 equal length sections,
with the appropriate catchments subdivision. The new channel K7 representation with hydraulic
profile is shown on figures 9 and 10.

Jun-6

Con-6

Jun-1

Con-1

Jun-2

Con-2

Jun-3

Con-3

Jun-4

Con-4

Jun-5

Con-5

Out-1

Figure 9: Channel KAN7 in Storm NET after catchments subdivision

Figure 10: Hydraulic profile of channel KAN7 in StormNET after catchments subdivision

Furthermore limited sensitive analysis has been done for this channel. The selection of both shape and
material of storm drain system components influence the hydraulic capacity. Conduit roughness
characteristics vary with conduit material; thus, the hydraulic capacity varies with the material type.
Two values of a Mannings roughness coefficients were examined - the first is 0.015 (PVC pipes) and
the second is 0.024 (concrete pipes).

11

The scenarios of limited sensitive analysis are:

-

channel K7 is rectangular with roughness n = 0.015 or n = 0.024, with no ponding area in

junctions

channel K7 is rectangular with roughness n = 0.015 or n = 0.024, with ponding area of 10m2
in junctions

The results for channels, outfalls, junctions, ponds and orifices for n = 0.015, n = 0.024 (Scenario
1,without ponding, or Scenario 2, with ponding area of 10m2 in junctions) are shown in Appendix A
in tables 1 and 2.

DISCUSSION OF RESULTS
The main results of this limited sensitive analysis are:

- Design flow capacity for channel K7 is 14,64 l/s in the case when Mannings n-value 0.015 is
applied, and 9,45 l/s when Mannings n-value 0.024 is applied. This difference results in lowering
peak flows in all conduits and lowering peak inflows in all junctions in case when n= 0.024 is applied.
These differences are present in all sections and junctions, and it is most significant in middle
positioned sections Con-2, Con-3 and Con-4 and middle positioned junctions Jun - 3 and Jun - 4 in the
case when ponding area of 10m2 has been jointed with junction nodes.
- In the case when Mannings n-value n= 0.015 or n= 0.024 is applied, with or without ponding
area of 10m2 differences between peak flows in all conduits and peak inflows in all junctions exist,
but they are not significant. Total time flooding is generally extended when ponding areas has been
jointed to the junctions and flooded volumes decreased.
- In all calculations the trench drain downstream node is modeled as a retention pond with or
without ponding area. Peak inflows are generally higher when pond areas has been jointed to trench
drain junction, but the difference between peak inflows to retention pond Jun-5 is not significant
(16.91 l/s or 17.41 l/s when n=0.015 was applied, and 12.12 l/s or 13.32 when n= 0.024 was applied).
On the other hand the differences between peak outflows are significant. In the case when there is no
pond area, the peak outflow is 9.45 l/s and it does not depend on peak inflow value. On the other hand
when pond area has been jointed to Jun-5 the peak outflows are significantly greater 17, 15 l/s in the
case when inflow is 16.91 l/s and 12.87 l/s in the case when peak inflow is 13.32 l/s. These
conclusions are very important, because this is the amount of water that enters the underground
network and this is the peak flow that can be limited with the outlet construction. In this moment we
can only conclude that size and type of outlet as control element in drainage system should be
modeled together with grated trench drains in laboratory conditions.

CONCLUSIONS

If we want to do proper modeling of trench drains in StormNET, the complete length of the grated
trench drain should be divided into the necessary number of sections dependending of the grated
trench drain length, with at least 2 objects for modeling. The highest point of the grated trench inlet
can be modeled as junction, and the lower point as detention pond. The lower points of the grated
trench inlet should be connected with the conduit system by weir or orifice, in dependence of the
outlet type that has been predicted by manufacturer.

12

The peak flow and time of peak flow occurrence is one of the most important factors in sizing process.
The partial sensitivity analysis showed that numerous factors influence the results with different level
of significance. One of the most significant factors is pond area of the downstream node that has been
modeled as the retention pond.
Generally, instead of using one value for each input, resulting in a single output, a probability density
function for each input and calculation parameter should be used, so than the output yields to the
discrete probability density function.
This would lead to the very important final conclusions for sewers system design: Instead of
concluding that flooding (exceeding of ground level) or surcharging or flow reversal occurs with at
return period of 5 years (the return period of rain gage), the conclusion yields, that there is a
probability of 95 % that flooding occurs with a return period of 2 13 years.

ACKNOLEDGMENT

This paper is part of the Project TR37010 Urban Drainage Systems as Key Infrastructure in Cities
and Towns financed by the Ministry of Science of the Republic of Serbia.

REFERENCES

ACO, http://www.acoaus.com.au/techsupport/drain/grate_hydr.htm
Achleitner S., (2006). Modular conceptual modelling in urban drainage development and application
of city drain, PhD thesis, Univesrity Innsbruck, Austria
BOSS International (2005), StormNET, Stormwater&Waster Modeling,Users Manual
Federal Highway Administration (2009).Urban drainage design manual, Hydraulic Engineering
Circular No.22 (HEC 22), Third Edition, Publication No.FHWA-NHI-10-009 Washington, D.C.
Jovan Despotovi (2009), Kanalisanje kinih voda, Graevinski fakultet Univerziteta u Beogradu (in
Serbian Languange)
U.S. Army Corps of Engineers (1993). Design of Bridge Deck Drainage , Hydraulic Engineering
Circular No.21 (HEC 21),
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) (2004). Storm water management model users manual,
http://www.epa.gov/nrmrl/wswrd/wq/models/swmm/

13

APPENDIX

Table 1. Channel K 7 peak inflows, outflows in junctions and peak flows for conduits without and with ponding roughness n=0.015
Element

Peak

Max

Max Flow /

Max

Total

Max

Element

Peak

Maximum

Time of

Total

Total

ID

Flow

Flow

Design Flow

Flow Depth /

Time

Flow

ID

Inflow

HGL

Maximum

Flooded

Time

Velocity

Ratio

Total Depth

Surcharged

Depth

(min)

(m)

Depth

HGL

Volume

Flooded

(lps)

(m)

(ha-mm)

(minutes)

1-Jun

7.53

0.12

(days
0hh:mm)
00:10

2-Jun

11.07

0.17

0 00:10

0.18

3-Jun

14.69

0.18

0 00:09

0.03

0.15

4-Jun

16.25

0.18

0 00:08

0.08

0.51

0.09

6-Jun

3.89

0.06

0 00:10

0.82

0.15

1-Jun

7.52

0.12

0 00:10

0.74

0.98

0.18

2-Jun

11.01

0.17

0 00:11

0.68

0.84

0.18

3-Jun

14.48

0.2

0 00:12

0.03

14.18

0.92

0.97

0.85

0.15

4-Jun

15.95

0.2

0 00:14

0.06

10

3.88

0.06

0 00:10

(lps)

(m/sec)

Con-1

7.34

0.52

0.5

0.8

0.14

Con-2

11

0.64

0.75

0.96

0.17

Con-3

12.37

0.69

0.84

Con-4

13.03

0.87

0.89

0.83

Con-6

3.69

0.43

0.25

Con-1

7.26

0.52

0.5

Con-2

10.76

0.62

Con-3

12.28

Con-4
Con-6

3.68

0.43

0.25

0.52

0.09

6-Jun

Element

Orifice

Flap

Circular

Orifice

Orifice

Peak

Time of

ID

Type

Gate

Orifice

Invert

Coefficient

Flow

Peak

Diameter

Offset

Flow
Occurrence

Con-5

BOTTOM

YES

(m)

(m)

0.15

0.18

(lps)
614

9.45

(days
0hh:mm)
00:05

Con-5

BOTTOM

YES

0.15

0.18

614

17.15

0 00:11

Element

Peak

Peak

Maximum

Time of

Total

Total

Element

Invert

Boundary

Peak

ID

Inflow

Outflow

HGL

Maximum

Flooded

Time

ID

Elevation

Type

Inflow

Volume

Flooded

Out-1

214.6

5-Jun

Depth

HGL

Attained

Occurrence

(lps)

(lps)

(m)

(days hh:mm)

(ha-mm)

(minutes)

16.91

9.45

0.23

0 00:05

0.37

12

14

(m)

(lps)
FREE

9.45

Table 2. Channel K 7 peak inflows, outflows in junctions and peak flows for conduits without and with ponding , roughness n=0.024
Element

Peak

Time of

Max

ID

Flow

Peak

Flow

Flow

Velocity

Max Flow
Design/
Flow
Ratio

Occurrence
(lps)

Max

Total

Max

Element

Peak

Maximum

Time of

Total

Flow Depth
Total Depth/

Time

Flow

ID

Inflow

HGL

Maximum

Flooded

Time

Surcharged

Depth

Depth

HGL

Volume

Flooded

(min)

(m)

Ratio
(m/sec)
0.43

0.80

0.95

0.00

0.17

Total

Attained

Occurrence

(lps)

(m)

(minutes)

7.46

0.16

(days
0hh:mm)
00:10

(ha-mm)

Jun-1

0.00

0.00

Con-1

7.340

(days
0hh:mm)
00:10

Con-2

8.510

0 00:10

0.47

0.93

1.00

0.00

0.18

Jun-2

11.06

0.18

0 00:08

0.04

5.00

Con-3

8.510

0 00:08

0.47

0.93

1.00

0.00

0.18

Jun-3

12.39

0.18

0 00:07

0.13

8.00

Con-4

8.230

0 00:06

0.61

0.90

0.75

0.00

0.13

Jun-4

12.39

0.18

0 00:06

0.19

11.00

Con-6

3.670

0 00:10

0.29

0.40

0.75

0.00

0.14

Jun-6

3.89

0.11

0 00:10

0.00

0.00

Con-1

7.330

0 00:10

0.43

0.80

0.96

0.00

0.17

Jun-1

7.46

0.16

0 00:10

0.00

0.00

Con-2

7.900

0 00:08

0.44

0.86

1.00

12.00

0.18

Jun-2

11.05

0.18

0 00:15

0.12

12.00

Con-3

8.260

0 00:10

0.46

0.90

1.00

15.00

0.18

Jun-3

11.13

0.23

0 00:14

0.07

15.00

Con-4

10.150

0 00:14

0.72

1.11

0.78

0.00

0.14

Jun-4

12.14

0.23

0 00:14

0.09

17.00

Con-6

3.670

0 00:10

0.29

0.40

0.75

0.00

0.14

Jun-6

3.88

0.11

0 00:10

0.00

0.00

Element

Orifice

Orifice

Flap

Circular

Orifice

Orifice

Peak

Time of

ID

Type

Shape

Gate

Coefficient

Flow

Peak

(lps)

(days
hh:mm)
0 00:06

Orifice

Invert

Diameter

Offset

(m)

(m)

Flow

Con-5

BOTTOM

CIRCULAR

YES

0.15

0.18

614.0000

9.450

Con-5

BOTTOM

CIRCULAR

YES

0.15

0.18

614.0000

12.870

Element

Max

Peak

Peak

Time of

Total

Total

Element

Boundary

Flap

Fixed

Peak

ID

(Rim)

Inflow

Outflow

Maximum

Flooded

Time

ID

Type

Gate

Water

Inflow

HGL

Volume

Flooded

(ha-mm)

(minutes)

0.10

11.00

Out-1

FREE

NO

9.45

0.04

17.00

Out-1

FREE

NO

12.87

Offset

0 00:12

Elevation

Occurrence
(m)

(lps)

(lps)

Jun-5

0.23

12.12

9.45

(days
0hh:mm)
00:05

Jun-5

0.23

13.32

12.87

0 00:12

15

(m)

(lps)

9th International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling

Belgrade 2012

Redesign of the Existing Combined Sewer System

(CSS) of Novi Sad
Matija Stipi1 , Rihard ranc2 , Duan Prodanovi3 , Radoica Stefanovi4 ,
Sran Kolakovi5
1

Vojvodinaprojekt, Bul.Kralja Petra I 17, Novi Sad, Serbia, matija@vojvodinaprojekt.rs

Vojvodinaprojekt, Bul.Kralja Petra I 17, Novi Sad, Serbia, rihard@vojvodinaprojekt.rs
3
University of Belgrade, Bul.Kralja Aleksandra 73, Serbia, eprodano@hikom.grf.bg.ac.rs
4
JKPVodovod i kanalizacija, Masarikova 17, Novi Sad, Serbia, radoica.stefanovic@vikns.rs
5
Univerzitet u Novom Sadu, Trg Dositeja Obradovia 6, Serbia, kolak@uns.ac.rs

ABSTRACT
The city of Novi Sad with the catchment area of 1960 ha and the current population
of 300.000 has a combined sewer system (CSS) constructed during the 1950s.
Stormwater and wastewater are discharged directly into the river Danube through
two central pump stations with no pretreatment. The drainage system was designed
for wastewater and stormwater drainage with the return period of 2 years for the
development level at the time. The system was surcharged and overflowed many
times during the first decade of this century due to the city development and
increasing population. Overflows at numerous locations in the city caused hourslong traffic jams and enormous structural damages. The hydraulic-hydrologic
analysis has indicated the requirement for the CSS redesign. The paper presents the
methodology applied to redesign the existing system into the combined sewer
system with storage tank and overflow (CSO). The system surcharges of once in 5
years and once in 3 years are designed for the central city area and residential area
respectively. The analysis of the existing and designed drainage conditions is made
using the urban water management modelling 3DNet. The storage tank with
overflow is designed for the reduction of the river Danube pollution. The designed
flow to the future wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) is determined to be
2QDWFm. The redesigned CSO can provide significant reduction in the system
surcharge and overflow, favourable hydraulic flow conditions in pipelines,
reduction in pollutant overload in the river Danube as receiving water as well as
optimal flow relevant for the dimensioning of WWTPs in Novi Sad.

KEYWORDS
Combined sewer, modelling, overflow, storage volume

INTRODUCTION

The systematic development of urban drainage systems in Serbia started in the early 1950s. The
concept of drainage in small towns was mainly developed as a semi-separated system. Combined
drainage of sanitary and industrial wastewater and stormwater only from central urban areas is
predominant in small towns (with the population of 50.000 to 100.000) like Sombor, Subotica,
Zrenjanin (Stipi et al. 2004). Wastewater and some stormwater is transported to the WWTP for
combined treatment. Stormwater drainage from the remaining urban areas (outside the town center) is
provided through the stormwater management system with the immediate discharge into the receiving
water with no pretreatment. Mixing of wastewater and stormwater can cause significant problems in
WWTP operation even during moderate storms (Sombor). The structures become overloaded with
diluted water causing unstable operation for a long period of time. Some areas of the town are also
frequently flooded.
Wastewater and stormwater are discharged into the receiving water with no pretreatment through the
combined sewer system in large cities in Serbia, in Beograd and Novi Sad first of all. The receiving
water quality is deteriorated by the discharge of wastewater and stormwater into the receiving water
with no preliminary treatment. In most cases the combined sewer system is dimesioned with the
overloading frequency of 1 in 1 year or, sometimes, in 2 years. Due to recent rapid development and
increased population in cities heavy rainfalls in the first decade of this century only caused the system
overloading and overflowing at many locations in cities. It resulted in traffic collapses and significant
damages.
Nowdays further developement of urban drainage systems in Serbia is at its turning point. The main
issue is how to combine the old system, numerous urbanistic limitations and the requirement for
increased reliability and reduced permanent environmental impact (Yufeng et al. 2008). The correct
concept redesign of the exisitng drainage systems in cities is required taking into account basic
considerations of the orientation of Serbia to EU membership as well as the water policy through the
Water Directive (European Water Framework Directive, WDF, 2000). The primary aim of this paper
is to consider the methods and possibilities of the transformation of the existing urban combined sewer
system into the combined sewer system with storage volume and overflow including sustainable
system surcharge as well as sufficient protection of the receiving water (Kleindorf, 2009; Valentin et
al. 2011). The sewer system redesign should provide unrestricted city development including
sustainable wastewater and stormwater management (EPA, 1999) avoiding urban areas overloading
and flooding as well as the protection of the receiving water following the EU Directive regarding the
drainage.
The paper presents the case study of the sewer system redesign in the city of Novi Sad with the
population of 300.000 and the total catchment area of 1960 ha. Novi Sad has the combined sewer
system with two main immediate outflows into the river Danube. The paper describes the redesign into
the combined sewer system with storage volume and overflow (Stipi et al. 2011). The combined
sewer system with overflow (CSO) is dimensioned with the designed overload frequency of 1 in 5
years and 1 in 3 years for the city central and residential areas respectively (EN-752-4, 1997). The
designed hydraulic load for the WWTP is 2 QDWFm (De Toffol, 2006). Mathematical simulation system
modelling using such determined criteria enabled the verification of the sewer system surcharge,
possible overflowing areas mapping, the verification of flow conditions in conduits, the analysis of the
receiving water load and overflow operation as well as the verification of the optimal discharge
relevant for the dimensioning of the WWTP structures.

METHODOLOGY

2.1

Design standards

SRPS EN 752-4 (SRPS EN 752-4, 2007) is the national standard in Serbia which sets basic principles
that must be taken into account in hydraulic calculation and consideration of the environmental impact
of the sewer systems functioning mainly as gravity systems. The design storm frequency system
surcharge and overflowing frequency (1 in n number of years) is recommended. Table 1 represents
the recommended frequency for the system development as a function of the area it is applied to. The
simulation flow model should be used in the design stage with large sewer systems to verify the
frequency and adverse effects of the system surcharge.
Primary function of the storage volume and overflows in the combined sewer system is to protect the
receiving water during the operation of the sewer system with no hydraulic surcharge (such as regular
sewer system operation, overflow not in operation) and the WWTP from the large inflow of diluted
water during overloading (when the diluted water surplus is directly discharged into the receiving
water). The sewer overflow can be designed such that the peak overflow occurs when the critical
rainfall intesity is exceeded. It usually ranges from 10 L/s.ha to 30 L/s.ha (for impervious areas) or the
simple criteria of diluting 5-8 discharges with dry weather prior to the overflow is used (when selfcleaning and the capacity are not endangered).
Table 1. Recommended frequencies for the combined sewer system development

DESIGN
FREQUENCY*

STORM AREA

Design overflowing
frequency
(1 in n years)

(1 IN N YEARS)
1 in 1

Rural area

1 in 10

1 in 2

Residential area

1 in 20

City centres, industrial/commercial

areas
1in 2

- with overflowing verification,

1 in 30

1 in 5

- without overflowing verification

Underground roads, underpasses

1 in 50

1 in 10
* No surcharge may occur.

Although the national regulation (SRPS EN 752-4, 2007) sets the recommended design storm
frequency for the analysis of 1 in 2 years for residential areas due to high population density and
directions of city roads, relevant design storm frequency-overload of 1 in 3 years is used for the
redesign requirements for the sewer system in the city of Novi Sad. The relevant storm frequency of 1
in 5 years is applied for the city center and greater city area. The Decree (Official Gazette of the RS,
2011) specifies maximum number of samples that may deviate from limiting load values defined for
treated urban water depending on the total number of samples taken within a year. Maximum deviation
from the limiting values of 25 samples per year are allowed for daily sampling from the WWTP.
Simulation flow models must be used to estimate matching with the limiting load values.
3

2.2

Description of the sewer system in Novi Sad

Novi Sad represents the administrative center of the northern Serbian Province of Vojvodina. About
360.000 people live within the greater city area. The catchment area within the combined sewer
system boundaries is 1960 ha with the population of 250.000. Impervious areas make about 36% of the
catchment area, Figure 1.
The catchment is devided into two city subcatchments, southern city subcatchment the subcatchment
of the pump station GC1 and northern city subcatchment the subcatchment of the pump station GC2.
Wastewater is discharged into the Danube with no preliminary treatment. Maximum capacity of the
pump stations is 10.5 m3/s each. At average, the pump stations pump water into the Danube during one
half of the year and during the second half of the year wastewater is discharged by gravity.
The catchment area is located at elevations ranging from 76.50 to 81.00 m with the average inclination
of 0.4% to the Danube. The river Danube is the eastern boundary of the city catchment area. The
average six-month Danube volume is 2700 m3/s. The city, and thus the catchment area, is protected
from the 100-year event with the flood bank. The sewer system was developed, designed and started
during the 1950s. It was designed for the drainage of wastewater and stormwater with 2-year storms.

Figure 1: The existing combined sewer system of Novi Sad (sewer outflows are located at the
stationary km: 1256)
The average daily dry weather flow, QDWFm, for the given catchment i 1 m3/s and it is shown in Figure
2. Only downstream conduits before the pump stations GC1 and GC2 are designed for 3-year storms.

Figure 2. Average daily dry weather flow (for the catchment area of Novi Sad)
The diameter of the secondary and primary sewer network ranges from 300 to 1000 mm (with the total
length of 280 km). The mains have rectangular profile 2.5x1.5 m, 3x1.7 m (with the total length of
about 35 km) and pipe-arch 4x2.4 m with invert elevation at the bottom. The sewer system has
connections from suburban areas with the total population of about 50.000. Approximately 35 million
m3 of wastewater per year is discharged into the Danube through the combined sewer system with two
outfalls, of which about 5 million m3 is stormwater.
The sewer system operation was significantly impaired due to well known events in Serbia during the
last decade of the last century and improper maintenance. In addition, population growth and
development have caused the increase in the runoff from the catchment. The city area was flooded
some ten times at many locations only during the first decade of this century. The combined sewer
system could not receive all the rainfall runoff so it ponded on the city surfaces, streets and squares.
Large damage resulted at numerous locations in the city. Streets flooding caused hours-long traffic
jams. Since first and second class state roads run through the city, traffic jams within the larger area
occured as well.
2.3

Precipitation data

Precipitation data for the city catchment area are obtained from the nearest state weather station at
Rimski anevi 8 km away from the catchment. The annual precipitation sum for the time period
1951 to 2005 is calculated based on further measurements, Figure 3. The average annual precipitation
sum of 610 mm indicates the moderate climate region where most of the total precipitation is produced
from low and moderate rainfalls whereas heavy rainfalls make smaller part.

Figure 3. Annual precipitation time series at the weather station Rimski anevi, 1951-2005
5

Statistical rainfall analysis with the intensity-duration-frequency graph shown in Figure 4 is made for
the given period of time based on the available data.

Figure 4. Duration dependent rainfall intensity (ITF curve weather station Rimski anevi)
The newtork of modern rain gauges within the greater city area was installed in early 2010 by the
system operator public utility Vodovod i kanalizacija from Novi Sad in order to provide better
insight in the sewer system performance. The rain gauge at the location of GC2 was installed for the
analysis of the runoff from the catchment of interest. Measurements at the rain gauge are used in the
graph with hourly precipitation in the time period 2010-2011, Figure 5.
Several specific hyetographs of the rainfall with duration ranging between 20 and 45 minutes and
intensity of 5 to 26 mm relevant for the drainage analysis are taken from the same rain gauge.
Measuring data from own rain gauge provide a more complete insight into all important properties of
the city drainage system (Linmei et al. 2009).

Figure 5. Precipitation time series in the period of time 2010-2011 (GC2 location in Novi Sad)

2.4

Model used for the runoff simulation

Mathematical numerical hydraulic simulation model SIPSON used and implemented in the software
3DNet was developed at the Faculty of Civil Engineering in Belgrade (orevi et al. 2005). The
model is based on solving complete St Venant equations and Preissman method of finite differences
(orevi, 2001). The model can calculate the runoff when the hydraulic capacity of the sewer system
6

is exceeded, the flow in pipes is pressurized and the water overflows from the underground conduits
onto the streets and roads. The runoff interaction is provided in mathematical model through
underground conduits and pipelines including the ground surface configuration. Procedures and
limiting conditions in the software describe the shaft volumes and shapes, conduit cross-sections, local
micro and macro depressions, soil characteristics and hydrograph distributions between the surface
runoff and underground flow. The software used provides hydraulic calculation of unsteady flow in
the conduit and pipeline network. The software using GIS routings can prepare geographic,
topographic, morphological, hydrogeological (soil properties: porosity, void ratio, soil roughness
factor, estimated surface micro depression areas) and other soil properties for the hydraulic calculation
with the precise layout of the conduit and pipeline network.
The basic model concept includes the following: the catchment is divided into subcatchments with
assumed homogenous properties (pervious and impervious areas ratio and their parameters). The
sections defined by digitally input nodes (in GIS surrounding) are assigned section subcatchments
according to the chosen geometry system that is, outlined based on the digital model of the terrain. The
subcatchments are grouped into: roofs, other impervious (streets, pavements, car parks, markets) and
pervious areas (parks, gardens, sport grounds). Roofs and other impervious areas are then grouped into
areas from which runoff flows straight into the sewers or surface channels and areas from which
stormwater first overflows onto pervious surfaces where its large quantity is infiltrated with the
remaining runoff stored. SIPSON version used for hydraulic calculation takes into account all the
members of the dynamic equation in the unsteady flow model. Small grades as well as propagation
delay and bottlenecks in the conduit network assume pressurized flow. These instances are included in
the calculation by taking into account downstream limiting conditions. Outflows are results of
differences between the land elevation and water level in the conduit (in its downstream node) at the
moment of the peak flow. Properties of the network and structures are taken from the existing design
documentation, utility installations and GIS database from the system operator.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

The results of the hydrodynamic calculation of the existing combined sewer system (CSS) of the city
of Novi Sad and the redesigned combined sewer system with storage volume and overflow (CSO) are
given below. The calculation is performed using relevant loading for the design storm frequencyoverloading of 1 in 3 years and 1 in 5 years for the city center and greater city area respectively. The
effects of the redesigned network will be verified in the model following the definition of the critical
sections in the existing system such that the required relevant loading conditions are met.
3.1

Hydrodynamic simulation the existing combined system

Hydrodynamic flow simulation is run for three different storms (with 2-, 3- and 5-year return periods).
First, the simulation is run for the 2-year storm for the residential area. Figure 6 shows the nodes with
the system surcharge that is, with overflows. Further, the simulation is run for the 3-year storm for the
same area. It can be concluded that the system surcharge occurs in most of the residential area. A
similar overflow analysis is made for the city central and greater areas. In addition to 2- and 3-year
storms 5-year storm is verified

Figure 6. Hydrodynamic model of the combined sewer system of Novi Sad overloading for 2- and 3year storms
The results obtained from the hydrodynamic modelling of the existing sewer system are then
compared with the history of flooding thus providing verification of the existing mathematical model.
The model indicates that 2-year storms can cause the system surcharge and overflows from catch
basins. The simulation results show that the existing CSS is not capable of receiving and draining
storms larger than 2-year storms. It is obvious that the existing sewer system requires redesigning
according to the accepted recommendations in order to prevent frequent system overflows and
surcharge that is, the CSS needs to be extended with new conduit sections.
3.2

Hydrodynamic simulation future combined system with overflow

The future sewer system in Novi Sad should provide the relevant design overloading frequency of 1 in
3 years and 1 in 5 years for the city residential and greater areas. In addition, it is necessary to consider
structures that control the allowable discharge into the receiving water that is, the protection of the
receiving water with no system surcharge and diminishing effects of the treatment at the WWTP. It is
therefore necessary to consider the required storage tank volume and determine the required discharge
to the WWTP during storms.
In order to protect the receiving water two existing outfalls are first connected such that the southern
catchment, GC1 catchment, is connected to the northern catchment, GC2, at the location of GC2. The
construction of the central pump station, GCS, settling storage tank and overflow is foreseen. The
complete wastewater flow QWWTP is pumped to the future WWTP on the right Danube bank all year
round. Figure 7 shows the plan of the operation of the central pump station, storage tank and overflow.

Figure 7. Operation plan of the GCS, storage tank and overflow

It is assumed that the maximum flow to the WWTP is QWWTPmax = 2 QDWFm. The flow Q of up to
QWWTPmax in the inflow conduit is conveyed to the WWTP. If the inflow Q is higher than QWWTPmax the
surplus is conveyed to the settling storage tank, Q- QWWTPmax. When the intensity of the storm is such
that the storage tank is full the overflow occurs, Q- QWWTPmax and the discharge is redirected to the
overflow with the outfall into the receiving water. The storage tank is emptied with the flow Q WWTPmaxQ after the storm. The connection of the outfalls into a joint one with GCS provides the conditions for
the analysis of the new required conduit sections in the sewer system (Figure 8) and modifications as
well as increased permeability at critical points in particular.

Figure 8. Hydrodynamic model of the combined sewer system with overflow new conduits and the
area arrangement
First, the simulation is run for 3-year storms for the residential part of the catchment area with the aim
of preventing the system surcharge and overflowing. It is performed by successive addition and
9

replacement of the conduits in critical sections including flow verification taking into account
urbanistic limitations in particular in the old city area. Multiple additions and certain modifications
result in new sewer system.

Figure 9. Hydrograph of the inflow to the GCS for the desing storm frequency
Urban area of the catchment, central and greater city areas, is then loaded with design 5-year storm
with hydrographs of the residential rainfall runoff added at the upstream end. New conduit sections are
added such that the system is not surcharged. Joint simulation of the discharge from both
subcatchments is then run with the newly produced sewer system. The redesigned sewer system meets
the requirements of the relevant design storm frequency system surcharge. Figure 9 represents the
hydrograph of the inflow to the GCS for the design storm frequency.
3.3

Storage tank with overflow

The national standard (SRPS EN 752-4, 2007) does not specify the required capacity of storage tanks
settling tanks but it provides framework for the dimensioning of the overflow into the receiving
water. It is foreseen that the overflow of peak discharge occurs when the critical rainfall runoff value is
exceeded, usually ranging between 10 and 30 L/s.ha (for impervious areas). Retention in the storage
tank can reduce the stormwater overflow into the receiving water. It can be therefore concluded that
stormwater remains in the storage tank until it reaches the critical range. National guidelines applied in
Austria and Germany were considered in detail for the determination of the storage tank volumes
taking into account practice (Gamerith, 2006; Achleitner, 2006) in European countries as well as the
annual precipitation sum at the catchment. Austrian guidelines OEWAV Regelbat 19 specifies the
storage tank volume of 15-25 m3/ha (for impervious areas). Where the receiving water is not too
sensitive the lower value of 15 m3/ha (for impervious areas) can be applied. German ATV 128 (ATV
A 128, 1992) represents guidelines for the dimensioning and construction of stormwater overflow
structures in the combined sewer system. The required storage tank capacity is specified within the
range of 10-40 m3 (for impervious areas). Most tanks (there are over 20.000 in Germany) are designed
with storage tanks of 20 to 25 m3/ha (for impervious areas).
As the total catchment area is 1960 ha with impervious area of about 36% the storage tank capacity of
15 m3/ha (for impervious areas) that is, the total storage tank capacity including the settling (clarifier
type) of 12.000 m3 for the entire catchment is adopted (Brombach H. et all. 2008). Several scenarios
of hydrodynamic flow describing the operation of the tank are assumed given the determined
functioning of the central pump station, GCS and relevant flow to the WWTP. Hydrodynamic
simulations enable determination of the storm intensity at which the tank does not overflow that is, the

10

storm that can fill the tank without overflowing. The system operation is verified with tank
overflowing that is, with the outflow into the receiving water. Critical storm intesity causing the
storage tank overflow into the receiving water is higher than 8 mm during one event. The sum of these
storm events, with storm intensity higher than the critical value, does not exceed 10 events in an
average year. Moreover, it can be concluded that the requirement set in the Decree (Official Gazette of
the RS, 2011) for the maximum number of samples that may deviate from the limiting load values for
treated urban water discharged into the receiving water within a year is met.

CONCLUSION

The paper presents the combined sewer system (CSS) of the city of Novi Sad as being currently
overloaded. The system is transformed, redesigned into the combined sewer system with storage
volume and overflow (CSO) according to the national standard (SRPS EN 752-4, 2007) such that it
meets current design criteria with maximum protection of other infrastructure. The existing CSS was
dimensioned for 2-year storm. The following was applied in the CSS redesigning into the CSO:

National guidelines applied in European countries are used to determine relevant WWTP
loading of QWWTPmax = 2 QDWFm.

The sewer system, CSO, is dimensioned and redesigned with the design surcharge frequency
of 1 in 5 and 1 in 3 years for the city central and greater areas and residental area respectively.
This is provided by the addition and replacement of a number of mains in the system. The
results of the hydrodynamic flow simulation indicate that the future system can meet the
required system surcharge and overflowing.

Measurements at facilities and the rain gauge performed by the system operator public utility
Vodovod i kanalizacija for their own needs are used for the storm analysis and flow
simulations.

The settling storage tank capacity (clarifier type), before the overflow, is 15 m3/ha (for
impervious areas). The settling storage tank with the capacity of 12.000 m3 for the entire
catchment can retain the storms of the intensity lower than the critical value of 8 mm prior to
the discharge into the receiving water. The annual number of storms lower than the critical
value causing the overflow into the receiving water is lower than 10.

The software package 3DNet used provided the verification of a large number of different discharge
scenarios in the system. First, all the locations of the system surcharge and overflowing are determined
and compared with the history of flooding zones. Then the iteration is used to redesign the system such
that the required design surcharge frequency is met.
The results produced by the developed methodology indicate that the old existing CSSs can be
successfully redesigned into modern CSOs, which is the first instance of the kind in Serbia. CSO
system including the adopted storage tank capacity can significantly reduce the pollution of the
receiving water and provide its protection. In addition, hydraulic flow conditions in the conduits are
improved and the pressurized flow time and overflowing are significantly reduced.
Total investment value of the additional conduits and storage tank in case of Novi Sad is 52 million
euros. Ongoing CSO construction works worth 15 million euros are provided from the loan of the
European Investment Bank.

11

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

The Project is financed by the public utility (PU) Vodovod i kanalizacija from Novi Sad, Serbia, as
a part of the activities for the development of the city sewer system until 2022 as well as feasibility
study required for the EIB loan. We thank to the associates from the PU for the precipitation and flow
measurements data. Finally, we thank to the Ministry of Science of the Republic of Serbia that
finances the Project TR37010 Urban Drainage Systems as Key Infrastructure in Cities and Towns
which includes the development of the programme package 3DNet.

REFERENCES

Achleitner S., (2006). Modular conceptual modelling in urban drainage development and application
of city drain, PhD thesis, Univesrity Innsbruck, Austria
ATV-A 128 (1992): Richtlinien fr die Bemessung und Gestaltung von Regenentlastungen in
Mischwasserkanlen. Hennef: GFA, Germany
Brombach H., Weiss G., Pisano W.C., (2008). Clarifier-type CSO Tanks: Hydraulic Design for
Optimum Sedimentation Efficiency, International Conference of Urban Drainge, Edinburg,
Scotland, UK
De Tefol S., (2006). Sewer system performance assessment-an indicators based methodology. PhD
thesis, Univesrity Innsbruck, Austria
Djordjevic S. (2001). A mathematical model of the interaction between surface and buried pipe ow in
urban runoff and drainage. PhD thesis, University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia.
Djordjevic S., Prodanovic D., Maksimovic C., Ivetic M. and Savic D. (2005). SIPSON - simulation of
interaction between pipe flow and surface overland flow in networks. Water Science and
Technology, 52(5), 275-283.
EPA, (1999) Combined sever overflows-Guidance for monitoring and modeling. Washington, DC,
USA: U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Office of Wastewater Manaement, report n 0 832B-99-002, 281
EN Europen Standards 752-4, (1997). Drain and sewer system outside building: Part 4. Hydarulic
design and environmental considerations, Brussels: CEN (Europen Committee for
Standardization)
Gamerith V., (2006) Long term simulations of combined sewer facilities. Thesis. INSA Lyon and Graz
University od Technology, 86
Kleindorf M., (2009). Uncertain calibration of urban drainage models, PhD thesis, Univesrity
Innsbruck, Austria
Linmei N., Oddvar L., Geir L., Elisabeth S. (2009). Impact of climate change on urban drainage
systems-a case study in Fredristand, Norway. Urban Water Journal, 6(4), 323-332.
Stipi M. at all. (2011). Novi Sad sewerage system development programme revision, Novi Sad, Srbija
Stipi M., R. ranc., D. Prodanovi, S. orevi, M. Stani (2004). Five year experence in application
of advanced hydroinformatic tools in design and reconstruction od UD system in Vojvodina,
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Valentin G., Jean-Luc B.K., Mohammad M., Wolfgang R. (2011). Implications of long-term
stormwater quality modelling for design of combined sewer infrastructure. Urban Water
Journal, 8(3), 155-166
Yufeng G., Godfrey W., Dragan S. (2008). Optimal design of storm sewer networks: Past, Presents
and Future, 11th International Conference of Urban Drainge, Edinburg, Scotland, UK,
Slubeni glasnik RS (2011): Uredba o graninim vrednostima emisije zagaujuih materija u vode i
rokovima za njihovo dostizanje, broj 67, strana 13-41 (in Serbian).

13

9th International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling

Belgrade 2012

Reconstruction of existing conventional storm

drainage systems in developing countries with
inclusion of Best Management Practice elements:
A case study
ana Topalovi 1, Boris Jandri 2
1
2

University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, ztopalovic@agfbl.org

University of Banja Luka, Bosnia and Herzegovina, bjandric@ agfbl.org

ABSTRACT
In the majority of developing countries, stormwater drainage practice consists of a
conventional storm drainage system design which either assumes combined sewer
system, or in the best case, separate wastewater and storm drainage systems
without any attenuation or peak flow decreasing effects. Rather, stormwater
drainage practice is to evacuate excess water from the area as soon as possible.
This paper aims to show the overall effects of reconstruction of existing
conventional stormwater drainage system into new ones by the inclusion of BMP
elements such as swales and detention ponds. Part of the existing system is
replaced with BMP elements (e.g. swales) and new ones are added (detention
ponds, where appropriate for design). Effects are analyzed through comparison of
results from a mathematical model for existing and reconstructed stormwater
drainage system, for both water quality and quantity at the sub-basin outlet point.
Cost effectiveness of the applied measures is quantified by comparing construction
prices for existing and reconstructed system. Reconstruction of the existing
stormwater drainage system is proposed respecting recognized and anticipated
problems with local communities/municipalities in developing countries. The
resulting water quality and quantity values clearly show an urgent need for
improving stormwater drainage practice in countries where the conventional
approach is still in use.

KEYWORDS
Best management practice, modelling, pollution, runoff, stormwater drainage system

INTRODUCTION

In the majority of developing countries, the usual stormwater drainage practice assumes a
conventional stormwater drainage system design by the inherent principle to remove excess water
from the surface "as soon as possible". This practice in the past relied excessively on combined sewer
1

systems, involving both stormwater and municipal wastewater. Nowadays, efforts are being made to
separate these systems. Hence the stormwater drainage system is then aimed at collecting storm runoff
from the surface and this is usually done by connecting all impervious surfaces directly to the system.
An adverse effect of this practice however is that it does not allow groundwater recharge and
consequently drains are over-designed to convey all excess stormwater irrespective of natural
processes (i.e. percolation, seepage and groundwater recharge). In this instance we mainly consider
excess water from the roofs, parking areas and other urban impervious surfaces that should be rather
directed to nearby pervious areas such as parks and other green areas.
This paper aims to prove the effectiveness of a simple reconstruction of a conventional system to
decrease the water quantity that enters the stormwater drainage system and also to improve the water
quality. Economic aspects of cost saving with this reconstruction are also highlighted as a very
important decision making tool in developing or low-income countries.
The complete analysis and conclusions rely upon model simulations of the drainage system. Different
drainage system models are developed as: (i) the existing one, (ii) the existing one with disconnection
of impervious surfaces from the system and connection to pervious zones, and (iii) reconstructed
system with inclusion of BMP elements, more specifically, dry detention ponds and vegetated swales.
Rainfall depth, sub-basin characteristics and pollution parameter inputs are the same for all models, so
the results are easily comparable. Finally, the costs of the systems are compared to prove that BMP not
only gives a better technical solution and cleaner collected water, but is also economically more
favourable.
Analysis of different storm drainage systems is performed by rainfall-runoff simulations in using the
StormNET modelling software (BOSS International, 2008). Simulations include both water quantity
and water quality modelling in several different sewer systems setups.
As a case study, the urban settlement of Veseli Brijeg in the city of Banja Luka, Bosnia and
Herzegovina, has been chosen. Data for the existing drainage system at the site was collected and the
corresponding drainage system model was developed. This is the reference model to which others are
compared by changing drainage practice and changing/adding elements. This drainage system is
referred to hereinafter as Conventional.
The second model keeps the same settings as the conventional model but with one change: all
impervious areas such as roofs and parking areas are connected to pervious zones instead of flowing
directly to the drainage system. This is the conventional system with source control included as a first
in the line of BMPs management. Hereinafter it is called Conventional + source control.
The third model is an alternative one constructed from the conventional model by replacing parts of
the drainage pipes with vegetated swales and including in the catchment two dry detention ponds that
need to be located appropriately. Hereinafter, this model is called Alternative.
Additionally, the basin has also been modelled as a natural one, i.e. without urbanization, for
additional comparison of outflow hydrographs before and after urbanization and with conventional
and BMP elements in the urbanized drainage system. This comparison highlights the BMP for
mimicking natural site conditions. This model is called Pre-development.

METHODS

2.1

Simulations of the rainfall-runoff process

StormNET is a physically based model with dynamic hydrologic and hydraulic calculations. The
concept for rainfall-runoff modelling is based on interaction of several main factors of the
environment (Boss International, 2008):

atmosphere/precipitation, modelled with the rain gauges;

land surface, modelled with the sub-basins;

groundwater system which is modelled with the aquifer; and

network elements that accept and convey computed runoff, modelled with the nodes and links.

In addition to the above there is the water quality modelling that can be defined together with the
water quantity model generation.
This program offers several different computation methods for calculating components of the rainfallrunoff processes. In this analysis for water quantity modelling, rainfall-runoff processes are calculated
using the EPA SWMM (Environmental Protection Agency Stormwater Management Model) model
which dynamically generates runoff based on rainfall, evapotranspiration and potential infiltration
data. Surface runoff is calculated by the non-linear reservoir method, whilethe Green and Ampt
method based on continuity and mass conservation equations (known as Darcys Law) is used for
calculation of infiltration. The calculation of the pipe flow uses St. Venants equations, specifically the
diffusion wave with inertial part omitted from the mass conservation equation. Also, software includes
calculations for BMP elements, for both quantity and quality control.
For all three model setups, one rain gauge station is assigned. Various synthetic rainfall events were
analyzed terms of catchment response to find out the most unfavourable flow for the system elements
design. It was concluded that for the analyzed watershed, maximum peak runoff occurs for the rainfall
duration of 15 minutes while maximum runoff volume is generated with the 1-hour rainfall, which is
important factor for the attenuation elements design.
The temporal variability of rainfall was also checked in order to find the maximum runoff peak that is
appropriate for drainage elements design. Four various temporally distributed synthetic rainfall events
were considered, according to StormNET rainfall designer options (see Figure 1):
1. constant intensity over duration (block storm),
2. cumulative rainfall with decreasing intensity (advanced storm),
3. cumulative rainfall with increasing intensity (delayed storm) and
4. cumulative rainfall with almost uniform intensity (same as 1. but differently defined in
StormNET software.

Figure 1. Rainfall time distribution graphs: decreasing intensity (left), increasing intensity (middle)
and almost uniform intensity (right)
After simulating runoff hydrographs for all rainfall temporal distributions, the cumulative rainfall with
decreasing intensity was adopted for further analyses. Three different return periods of synthetic
storms were considered:

Synthetic storm of the 2-year return period or 50% probability of exceedance, representing
local design practice,

Synthetic storm of the 10-year return period or 10% probability of exceedance, corresponding
to design practice in the majority of developed countries,

Synthetic storm of the 5-year return period or 20% probability of exceedance as a middle of
the road solution between the previous ones.

In urban stormwater drainage systems the main sources of contamination are pollution washed-off
with runoff from the catchment surfaces and pollutants that have accumulated in the sewers during dry
weather (Rauch et al., 2001). The pollution modelling available within StormNET is a common twostage process: pollution build-up during dry periods and pollution wash-off during wet weather. This
causes the simulation to be continuous with both dry and wet weather periods to capture pollution
loads, because normally pollution loads increase with increasing antecedent dry period. According to
an experimental study by Vaze and Chiew (2002), after a rain event, the pollution washed-off builds
up again relatively quickly to the previous amount on the surface. This implies that during comparison
of pollution resulting from different drainage model setup, the distribution of the specific pollution
load during simulation time is not so relevant. BMP elements will reduce only a maximum of
pollution load during the analyzed time, since they do not have an effect on pollution build-up on the
surface during dry weather. In this paper detailed pollution modelling was not in the focus, it was only
used for relative comparison purposes between different drainage systems. Input parameters, since
there were no measured ones, were adopted as usual values given in StormNET itself (Manning et al,
1977; US Environmental Protection Agency, 1983; Huber and Dickinson, 1992).
Urban stormwater pollution sources such as atmospheric deposition, catchment surface
attrition/elution or urban land use activities produce various amounts of pollution parameters, varying

from site to site. It is recognized (Marsalek and Viklander, 2011) that the most common parameters of
urban non-point source pollution are: total suspended solids (TSS), total phosphorus (TP), total
nitrogen (TN), biological oxygen demand (BOD), chemical oxygen demand (COD), Lead (Pb),
Copper (Cu) and Zinc (Zn).
In this study, three pollution parameters are analyzed: TSS, TP and BOD.
Sub-catchments characteristics are kept the same in all models as well as the systems conveyance
lengths. The pollution input data remain constant in all three models to ensure comparability of the
simulations results.
2.2
2.2.1

Development of storm drainage models: Case Study

Existing storm drainage system Conventional model setup

As a case study, a catchment in the urban area of Banja Luka city called Veseli Brijeg was chosen with
an area of 9.2 ha. The land use is typically residential with mainly dense apartment blocks and some
individual households. The drainage system is of the separate type, so the stormwater drainage
network could be individually analyzed without influence from the municipal wastewater.
The model has been developed with 12 sub-catchments. The main input data is given in the Table 1.
Table 1. Sub-catchments input data
Sub-catchment
ID

Area

Equivalent
width

Average
slope

Impervious areas
Model I

Impervious areas
(without roofs)
Model II and III

(ha)

(m)

(%)

(%)

(%)

0.27

70.89

4.3

30

20

0.47

87.43

6.1

30

20

1.04

148.52

4.3

35

25

0.91

225.86

6.1

38

28

0.65

114.34

4.3

30

20

1.05

118.77

4.3

40

30

0.72

168.44

4.0

25

15

0.52

106.93

1.3

35

25

0.56

114.73

3.2

30

20

10

0.53

57.08

4.0

40

30

11

0.37

44.58

3.2

40

30

12

0.33

139.66

4.3

40

30

Other input data for sub-catchments

Pervious area depression depth
Impervious area depression depth
Soil conductivity
Manning's roughness for pervious areas
Manning's roughness for impervious areas
Suction head (for the Green-Ampt method)
Initial moisture deficit (porosity minus initial moisture content)
5

4 mm
1.5 mm
36 mm/h
0.35
0.018
61 mm
0.25

The conventional drainage system layout is designed by standard procedures that are part of the state
regulations and with standard elements. The system is very simple and comprises circular pipes,
standard manholes with inner diameter of 1000 mm and one outlet where the runoff hydrograph is
computed and data tracked for further analysis and comparison.
Sub-catchment areas and slopes are derived from the DEM (Digital Elevation Model) while
impervious/pervious areas are estimated from the digital ortho-photo maps. Other data (given in the
lower part of the Table 1) are estimated upon recommended values published in various global
literature sources and embedded in the software (USACE, 1998; SCS, 1986; ASCE, 1992 and Rawls
et. al, 1983). Unfortunately, there was no data for the model calibration. Instead, the parameter's
variability and sensitivity analysis were performed to estimate the range of output results of varying
parameters within the expected range.
The drainage network's junctions and pipe data are taken from the existing network design, with all
their physical properties (e.g. geographic coordinates, invert and ground/rim elevations and offsets,
length and diameters for the existing system) as if they are built on site.
2.2.2

Conventional model setup with source control

This model is the same as the previous one, except for inclusion of a simple source control. This is
done by conveying roof runoff away from the drainage system and onto the pervious areas, such as
lawns and gardens instead. The model is changed by assigning less impervious areas to each sub-basin
by reducing the percentage of overall roof area. This is considered to be accurate because routing roof
runoff to the pervious zones first, from where it will be conveyed to the drainage network, makes these
areas act as pervious. The used impervious area percentage for each sub-basin is shown in Table 1.
2.2.3

Reconstructed model with BMPs elements

This model presents the re-designed conventional type, with the source control measure from the
previous model and two additional dry detention ponds within the site included. In addition, from the
three sub-basins, S1, S2 and S3 (Figure 2), runoff is collected and conveyed with the grassed swales
modelled along the roads. The swales are 1 m wide and 40 cm deep.

Figure 2. Schematic representation of storm drainage network models in the case study area:
conventional (left) and alternative (right)
6

Detention ponds are sized according to the runoff volume from the conventional model results for that
particular sub-basin and one on the sub-basin S6 with a volume of 131 m3 and from sub-basin S8 with
volume 35 m3. Both ponds are designed to accept the sub-basins runoff volumes and with the outlet
control structure they can slowly drain to the downstream part of the drainage network.
As detention ponds outlets, the control structure element called the outlet from the computer model
is used. For this element it is possible to completely control the flow rate by defining the head-outflow
rating curve.
Water in ponds can exfiltrate to the ground at all water levels, so it is assumed that there is no liner in
the pond. The exfiltration method used is the Horton equation for all wet pond surfaces with the
following parameters:
1. maximum exfiltration rate is 8 mm/hr,
2. minimum exfiltration rate is 1.6 mm/hr and
3. decay constant is 4 h-1.
According to previous research (Strassler et al., 1999), BMPs efficiency in pollution removal varies
from one element to another. It is found that for both dry detention ponds (using data collected from 8
studies) and for swales (using data collected from 20 studies) the range of percentages of typical
pollution removals are:

for TSS 30-65%,

for TP 15-45% and

for BOD 30%.

According to these findings, input data for BMP pollution removal were adopted to be: 20% for BOD,
30% for TSS and 50% for TSS. With such efficiencies, the model simply calculates the pollution
concentration downstream of the BMP element by decreasing pollution values in each time step by a
defined percentage.
2.2.4

Natural conditions model

In the reviewed literature, various methods are recommended and set within the state regulation for
peak runoff estimation for a site with natural conditions (Woods-Ballard et al, 2007). Notwithstanding,
it is possible to model the natural site conditions and compare the results with the post-development
conditions in order to assess differences in runoff rate and hydrograph shape.
In this study the pre-development system is modelled as a whole catchment with a very small
percentage of impervious area (5%). This model is made for estimation of difference in pre- and postdevelopment runoff rates, and also for sizing the storage facilities at the site.
2.2.5

Model parameter variability and sensitivity analysis

Since there was no data for model calibration, a sensitivity analysis was performed to determine how
the model results vary in response to changes in input parameters. In simple models the sensitivity is
readily apparent. However, in a sophisticated sewer model, the response of the model at one location
relative to changes in flows or parameters at another location may not be that obvious. Combinations
of parameters may have unpredictable interactive effects.

In this paper, data variability and sensitivity analysis were performed on the alternative system, by
making simulation runs while varying relevant input parameters. These parameters are varied for a
range of values that are expected to be encountered and the effect on the output results was analyzed.
In this study, parameter variability and model sensitivity analysis is performed using the 15-minute
rainfall of the 10 year return period. While varying one parameter, the rest are kept to the fixed model
value (i.e. column two in Table 2). Consequently, values of varied parameters and the corresponding
deviation of the model results are given in Table 2.
Table 2. Overview of parameters variability and outflow sensitivity analysis
Variable parameter

Model value

Uncertainty

Range of parameter
min value max value

Deviation (max
minus min
obtained
runoff) (l/s)

Hydraulic conductivity
[mm/hr]

36

30

66

91.18

Impervious areas
depression storage [mm]

1.5

0.5

2.5

2.59

Pervious areas depression

storage [mm]

8.44

Manning coefficient for

pervious n [m-1/3s]

0.35

0.05

0.3

0.4

0.61

Manning coefficient for

impervious n [m-1/3s]

0.018

0.003

0.015

0.021

1.1

Initial moisture deficit [-]

0.25

0.20

0.05

0.4

15.07

Suction head [mm]

61

12

49

73

2.64

From the above, it can be concluded that for the developed simulation model, two parameters have the
most uncertainty, namely: hydraulic conductivity and initial moisture deficit, which are both soil
characteristics.
2.3

Cost analysis of different drainage systems

In addition to the technical aspects of improving drainage systems, it is useful to consider the
difference in costs between the two models, because in the developing countries (as well asin the
developed countries) this is the most important factor for the decision makers. Based on pipe lengths
in the two models and with additional ponds and swales construction, the simplified cost structure can
be developed and compared.
For the conventional pipe system, prices include all works from the construction site preparation,
earthworks, manholes construction, laying of sand substratum, hydraulic test etc. In the alternative
system, pipe length and number of manholes are reduced by substituting them with the swales-grassed
shallow parabolic channels. The BMP measures that are used in this model include swales and
detention ponds, which are among the cheapest in terms of construction and maintenance. This was
intentionally adopted to reflect known problems that are encountered with the local
community/municipality.

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

By performing the analysis as described above, runoff hydrographs for all models were obtained and
are shown in Figure 3. It can be clearly seen how simple BMP measures (Alternative system) can
contribute to the flood peak decrease.

Figure 3. Comparison of runoff hydrographs for different storm drainage models (for the 15-minute 2year storm)
Figure 4 below shows the resulting runoff at the system outlet as a function of rainfall duration and
return period. It can be seen how different flow controlling measures decrease peak flow (i.e. through
source control, detention ponds and swales). Figure 5 shows the percentage decrease of peak flow for
the 15-minute storm and of runoff volume for the 1-hour storm for two models, namely the
conventional + source control and the alternative one, compared to the conventional model.

Figure 4. Runoff at catchment outlet vs. rainfall duration for different storm drainage models and for
three different return periods T
9

Directing roof runoff towards pervious areas around buildings instead into the storm drainage system
leads to a decrease of the impervious areas of approximately 10% and decreases peak runoff by around
30%. With the inclusion of detention ponds and swales, this decrease is up to 47%.

Figure 5: Percentages of decrease in peak flow and runoff volume for two models - Alternative and
Conventional + source control in comparison to the conventional one.
To clarify what is happening with the flow, Figure 6 shows the flow through link C2, which is a pipe
in the conventional system and a swale in the reconstructed one. As can be seen, the flow is
substantially attenuated in the wide vegetated swale compared to the conventional system. This is
because infiltration is allowed and even encouraged using vegetated swales with especially porous
underlying soil. Similar results in the pipe downstream of the detention ponds can also be expected,
since ponds are designed to capture local flood volume and release it slowly and uniformly
downstream.
50

Flow: Link - C2 (Alternative system-swale instead of pipe)

45

Flow: Link - C2 (Conventional system-pipe flow)

Flow (lps)

40
35
30
25
20
15
10
5
0

0.103

0.206

0.309

0.412

0.515
0.618
Time (hrs)

0.721

0.823

0.926

Figure 6. Flow hydrographs through link C2 pipe vs. swale as an alternative

As mentioned previously, during comparison of different drainage models, the setup, the pollution
results, and the distribution of the specific pollution load during simulation time is not so relevant.
Therefore, event mean pollution concentration is compared at the catchment outlet for the
conventional and alternative systems.
Figure 7 provides graphs of BOD, TP and TSS concentrations for 15-minute storm and different return
periods. As can be seen, pollution reduction in the model with source control only (conventional +
source control model) is not so significant, since it mainly represents reduction of pollution from the
10

roofs that does not enter the system but is discharged instead onto pervious areas such as grass.
Conversely, with detention ponds and swales, the decrease in pollution is significant.

Figure 7. Mean change of BOD, TP and TSS vs. rainfall return period for different storm drainage
models
Figure 8 shows the percentages of pollution reduction at the catchment outlet for BOD, TP and TSS.
The best efficiency of BMPs included in this reconstructed model is related to removal of TSS, but TP
and BOD concentrations also decrease substantially.

Figure 8. Percentage of pollution removal in the alternative model reconstructed drainage system
with BMPs elements

11

An analysis of the costs provides also very good results in favour of BMP. If a multi-criteria analysis
for technical, environmental, social and sanitary parameters was included, it is likely the results would
be very satisfactory (Baptista et al, 2007). A simple comparison of costs of the construction of
conventional and alternative drainage systems are given in Tables 3 and 4.
Table 3. Construction costs for conventional drainage system
Construction work

Cost []

Construction site preparation

13.112,00

Earthworks

65.149,00

Concrete works

10.129,00

Masonry

6.685,00

Pipe purchase and installation

39.362,00

Other (additional) works

26.276,00

160.713,00

Table 4. Construction costs for alternative/reconstructed drainage system

Construction work (conventional elements)

Cost []

Construction site preparation

9.995,00

Earthworks

52.830,00

Concrete works

8.840,00

Masonry

4.934,00

Pipe purchase and installation

17.706,00

Other (additional) works

20.040,00

BMPs element

Size

Unit

Cost
[/units]

Cost
[]

Detention pond
(1+2)

166

12

1992

Swales

304

2432

118.769,00

As can be seen, cost savings of about 42.000 can be expected. In other words, 26% less capital cost
is required for the construction of alternative systems using BMPs elements compared to those using
the conventional design.

CONCLUSIONS

From the analysis presented above, the summary of conclusions can be listed as follows:
1. the impact of urbanization and design of conventional drainage systems increase catchment
natural runoff by a factor of almost 5 times,

12

2. with a simple source control (in this example roof runoff was discharged onto pervious areas
instead of being drained directly to the drainage system), both peak runoff and runoff volume
are decreased by around 30% ,
3. an alternative system which includes sustainable elements (e.g. detention ponds and swales)
decreases both runoff and runoff volume by around 45%,
4. pollution is decreased for 8%-30% depending on the pollution parameter, which is significant
and has important repercussions for the future design of wastewater treatment plants,
5. cost savings in the construction of a system using BMP elements are 26% compared to the
conventional system, mainly because natural conveyance systems are cheaper than pipes,
while pipe diameters are generally smaller than in a conventional system (due to the decreased
peak flow),
6. reconstruction of a conventional system is quite simple with substantial positive effects; a new
storm drainage design can also represent a cheaper option. Notwithstanding, it is not clear how
new storm drainage design will turn out in the long-term when maintenance is included, since
it has been shown through various reports and studies (e.g. National SUDS Working Group,
2004; Parkinson and Mark, 2005; Woods-Ballard et al, 2007) to be somewhat expensive
compared to the conventional systems.
Generally speaking, reconstruction of conventional storm drainage systems is very feasible with small
investments that can provide large positive influences on both water quantity and quality at the outlet
point of the system. It is highly recommended for countries that have not yet adopted this type of
storm drainage practice to improve it and start using sustainable and environmental friendly solutions.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENT

This paper follows the Master Thesis of the principal author (Topalovi, 2009) completed under the
postgraduate course Educate! Postgraduate Course for Water Resources and Environmental
Engineering on University of Belgrade. The thesis was supervised by Professor edo Maksimovi to
whom the author extends her thanks for the idea, inspiration, precious help and advice that has been
provided.

REFERENCES

ASCE. (1992). Design & Construction of Urban Stormwater management Systems. ASCE, New York.
Baptista M., Nascimento N., Castro L. M. A., Fernandez W., Barraud S., and Moura P.. (2007).
Multicriteria evaluation for urban storm drainage. First SWITCH Scientific Meeting. University
of Birmingham, Birmingham.
Boss International (2008). StormNET Technical reference. Technical reference. Boss International,
Madison USA.
Boss International (2009). StormNET User's manual. User's manual. Boss International Madison USA.
Huber W.C. and Dickinson W.T.. (1992). Storm Water Management Model, Version 4, Users
Manual. USEPA. Athens, Georgia.

13

Manning M.J., Sullivan R.H. and Kipp T.M. (1977). Nationwide Evaluation of Combined Sewer
Overflows and Urban Stormwater Discharges Vol. III: Characterization of Discharges. EPA600/2-77-064c (NTIS PB-272107), U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, Cincinnati, OH.
Marsalek J. and Viklander M. (2011). Controlling contaminants in urban stormwater: Linking
environmental science and policy. On the water front: Selections from the 2010 World Water
Week in Stockholm. Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), Stockholm, pp. 101-108.
National SUDS Working Group (NSWG). (2004). Interim code of practice for sustainable drainage
systems. NSWG, London.
Parkinson J. and Mark O. (2005). Urban stormwater Management in Developing Countries. IWA
Publishing, London.
Rauch W., Bertrand-Krajewski J.L., Krebs P., Mark O., Schilling W., Schutze M. and Vanrolleghem
A.P. (2001). Mathematical modelling of integrated urban drainage systems. Department of
mathematical
modelling,
statistics
and
bioinformatic.
http://biomath.ugent.be/~peter/ftp/pvr289.pdf (accessed 13 February 2012).
Rawls W.J., Brakensiek D. L. and Miller N. (1983). Green-Ampt infiltration parameters from soil
data. Journal of Hydraulic Engineering, 109:62(1). ASCE.
SCS. (1986). Urban Hydrology for small Watersheds. Technical Release 55. US Department of
Agriculture, Washington DC.
Strassler E., Pritts J. and Strellec K. (1999). Preliminary Data Summary of Urban Storm Water Best
Management Practices. United States Environmental Protection Agency, Washington.
Topalovi . (2009). Improvement of storm drainage practice in South-Eastern Europe. Master
Thesis. University of Belgrade, Belgrade, Serbia.
U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (1983). Results of the Nationwide Urban Runoff Program
(NURP), Vol. 1, NTIS PB 84-185552, Water Planning Division, Washington, DC.
USACE. (1998). HEC-1 Flood Hydrograph Package User's Manual. User Manual. Hydrologic
Engineering Center, Davis, CA.
Vaze, J. and Francis Chiew H.S.. (2002). Experimental study of pollutant accumulation on an urban
road surface. Urban Water 4. Elsevier Science Ltd., pp. 379-389.
Woods-Ballard B., Kellagher R., Martin P., Jefferies C., Bray R., and Shaffer P.. (2007). The SUDS
Manual. CIRIA, London.

14

9th International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling

Belgrade 2012

A multidisciplinary approach to sewage and storm

water drainage - Case studies of the cities of Pula and
Rovinj
Tatjana Uzelac1 and Katja Soi2
1
2

Starum Ltd., Croatia, tanja@starum.hr ,

Studio Kappo Ltd., Croatia, katja@studio-kappo.com,

ABSTRACT
The paper deals with examples of application of a multidisciplinary approach for
master study concerning sewage and storm water drainage within planning of
municipal infrastructure, and also protecting greenery and developed areas in a
city. The bases of spatial and environmental planning are principles of a wider
socio-ecology approach concerning entire ecosystem beside hydraulic engineering
techniques. The emphasized components are as follows: aesthetical, ecological and
economic encompassing sustainability of developed and natural spaces. The paper
presents a compound concept of increasing city spaces values and possibilities of
less expensive solutions than the conservative ones. Such modern decentralized
systems consist of local micro drainage systems of waste and storm water, based on
sustainable phases, such as retention, attenuation and infiltration facilities. This
approach is characterized by financial efficiency including practice of multiuse of
city spaces and corridors, not only for the protection against negative impact of
water but also an improvement of aesthetic, social and ecological values of a city.
The given examples present recently designed and already constructed systems in
the cities of Pula and Rovinj, including partial separation within combined sewer
system, aimed at protecting the lower part of these towns against flooding and
upgrading existing city areas with environmental planning approach.

KEYWORDS
Keywords: sewage system, storm water, drainage, decentralized drainage, micro systems, economic
efficiency, multiuse corridors.

INTRODUCTION

In recent times the sea level rise due to climatic changes is influencing rainfall runoff and pollution in
coastal cities, and furthermore influences new approaches within city planning of public spaces and
infrastructure systems, particularly storm water drainage and treatment. Traditional method of storm
drainage is basically with combined sewer systems what usually causes a series of economic, aesthetic
1

and functional problems what ultimately cause high pollution of sea water. In general, pipes and
collectors of combined systems are overestimated during dry periods while during rainy period those
are usually underestimated.
The need for separate systems is increasing taking into account strong needs for environmental
protection including increasing expenses for the modern technology of secondary and tertiary
treatment of waste water.
During massive design and construction works of the highway network in the Republic of Croatia,
recent modern approach was applied concerning a series of measures for environment protection and
pre treatment of storm water runoff (Faculty of Civil Engineering Zagreb, 2000).
A list of such solutions applied for the first time to urban systems of the cities of Pula and Rovinj
(Starum and Studio Kappo, 2011), at the golf courses (Starum, 2007) and also in tourist village
Monsena - Valdaliso (Starum, Studio Kappo, 2011).
This paper presents the differences of such systems and traditional sewer systems in cities and roads,
and on top of that also efficiency of these drainage systems in urban centres. Each of the system is
specific in a way because of local conditions for design and construction, although all of them consist
of the following phases: pre-treatment, treatment, transportation and surface water retention.
During the years of monitoring of the constructed drainage systems in the Istria certain differences
have been noticed with regard to the investment, efficiency and maintenance of the each system. This
paper consists of a review of urban storm water systems, with the application of a multidisciplinary
sustainable approach application in tourist areas.

2
2.1

AN OVERVIEW OF THE CONSTRUCTED SYSTEMS IN THE CITIES

OF PULA AND ROVINJ
Highway and Pula city beltway

The proposed modern approach of storm water drainage started being applied in the Republic of
Croatia during 1990ies within design project and construction of the highway networks. The Faculty
of Civil Engineering of the University of Zagreb (2000) published a report known as Roads drainage
the protection of the environment against negative effects, consisting of a series of methods that were
tested, such as BMP (Best Management Practice), LID (Low Impact Development), WSUD (Water
Sensitive Urban Design) and other approaches.
The application of those methods of highway storm water drainage and pre-treatment was applied in a
series of design projects of the Istria highways, so called the Istrian Y, using closed pipeline
drainage system and open lagoons (11 lagoons - designed by numerous consulting companies). Also at
the town of Porec the open channel drainage systems along the road were completed by lagoons with
extended retention (Starum, 2004). Such a solution is constructed also at the entrance into Pula (IGH,
2007).
In Figure 1 are shown two systems, as follows: a layout of the Stanga Lagoon in Rovinj is shown in
Fig. 1(a), with its closed drainage system; In Fig. 1(b) is presented lagoon with extended retention
within the open drainage system at the entrance to the city of Pula (IGH, 2011).

In given Fig. 1(b) the stone bed which is used for dissipation of flow energy, was also put at the
entrance to the lagoons well completed with an overflow in case of emergency at the exit from the
lagoon.

Figure 1a. b) Lagoon at the entrance in Pula

Figure 1a. The Stanga lagoon in Rovinj

The choice of concept of drainage, either open or closed system is based on watershed area, water
protected area and the measures of pre-treatment. The given constructed systems, show that lagoons as
the part of the closed pipeline systems are always full of water. Quite opposite occurs when lagoons
are at open drainage systems since they are always empty, i.e., water from the open drainage systems
does not even reach lagoons, since the area under discussion is a karst terrain, which means the
infiltration process is intensive. In other words, even complete rainfall runoff is infiltrated before
entering lagoons. In this respect, special attention and measures should be implemented at such
landscapes by the roads and highways in karst, particularly in sensitive water area. This is to propose
and design a grassed strata along the road over karst soil, or inserting additional green belts which
would, at the same time, be used for pre-treatment of water its before its discharge into the
surrounding terrain. From an aesthetic point of view such systems are assesed as much better than the
others. Also, they are better regarding more acceptable and concentrations of pollutions are lower
when compared to closed drainage system. . Lastly, those modern drainage systems are financially
more efficient.
Concerning the given reasons, an open drainage system at the roadway has been applied to the green
areas using beltway completed with pre-treatment for the first time in Pula area (in the phases of
issuing permission). Estimated investment costs for previously designed closed drainage system has
been significantly decreased, and furthermore maintenance costs of the system have also been reduced
due to maintenance of the pavement since also is decreased a road project period and maintenance
could consists of thinner layers, recycling etc, without treating of a the pavement structure which is
without drainage and other infrastructure systems. Green belts have become multi-use corridors for
other infrastructure facilities and for drainage system due to slopes and flow directions. Green belts,
which usually are not used for storm water drainage, have to be cut even 20 times a year in the Istria
area. The analysis of the investment costs, pre-treatment and maintenance costs of such solutions will
be presented in the next chapter. Figure 2 shows recently designed green belts in Pula beltway within
landscape shaping.

Figure 2. Recently designed the green belts in the city of Pula along the city freeway
The details of concepts of the drainage are dependant upon conditions at site, watershed area and the
necessary level of environment protection. In the same line is protection of underground water, also
lower parts of city old town centres and existing sewage system should also be protected. Application
of so called Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) storm water integral planning provides numerous
benefits. The WSUD approach can therefore only be implemented by a team of professional planners
and design engineers from different domains, such as:

water (hydraulic civil engineers),

urban development (urban planners )

architecture (architects, urban designers)

landscape (landscape architects), and also

local authority officials (e.g. administrative officers).

In Figure 3 and Figure 4 are shown cross-sections of the beltways including storm water systems.

Figure 3. Cross section of the beltway drainage system by bioretention

Figure 4. Cross section of the beltway drainage by bioswale

2.2

System at Nazor Street in Pula

In Nazor Street in Pula were constructed five facilities based on separation of combined sewage
system, retention and pre-treatment of storm water.
Water from the sub system in Nazor Street flows toward the Central city system while main drainage
pipe is discharged into the Adriatic sea trough old Austro-Hungarian-built Pragrande channel. During
severe rain events within last 2 years, a lots of surface runoff was retained on the lowest parts of the
watershed and downstream part of the street, particularly during high tide and high level of
underground water. Those are the reasons that these facilities were built upstream in order to retain
and to slow down runoff in rain gardens until the level of the underground water in the Pragrande
channel had been lowered.
The entire drainage system and separation of rainfall surface runoff in Nazor Street has been solved in
a way that the watershed area has been separated into a number of sub watersheds that would not
simultaneously overtop the main drainage channel Pragrande. Each of the sub storm water drainage
system functions as a separate system, out of which water gradually infiltrate after retention and pretreatment, into the soil or into the new storm water drainage system in Nazor Street. Once the major
runoff events are drained, and after the water level has decreased in the Pragrande channel (the most
critical time is approximately 30 min rainfall duration and coincidence of high tide and saturation of
the soil from antecedent precipitations) the existing Pragrande channel and the downstream part of the
town are not burdened from flooding. Those five systems are different, from the absorption dry-well
with overflow at the first lowest point where storm water is drained from the separated system, to the
last most downstream retention which is protected from high ground water during high tide using
geomembrane. After a year after construction, plants have not yet reached designed height due to
severe droughts.
Planted species differ at each retention due to different design of decoration and Mediterranean herbs
in either droughts or rainy periods. An assesment of indicators of pollution and efficiency if pretreatment will be possible upon monitoring that is carried on. Photo in Fig. 5(a) is taken during
construction of the A-1 retention in Nazor Street. In Fig. 5(b) is presented rain garden - A3, one year
after completion Figure 6 (a) shows retention A-1, six months after construction. In Figure 6(b) is
presented an overview after one year of completion and extreme droughts during winter time period.

Figure 5(a) Nazor Str. A1 during completion

Figure 5 (b) Nazor Str. A3 after one year

Figure 6a) Nazor Street A1 after 6 months

b) Nazor street A2 after one year

2.3

The rain garden in Stanga business zone in Rovinj

The town of Rovinj has a separated drainage system at its whole area, except the old town centre. It
was planned to use terrain for a storm system in order to convey storm runoff from the towns
hinterland to the St. Brigit abyss located in the south-eastern part of the town. In accordance with
Republic of Croatia regulative, any sort of waste water must be treated before it is discharged into the
abyss. Upon such requirements a lagoon had to be designed with extended retention time and a
drainage channel toward the pipe and the abyss of a DIA 1000 mm. Due to the large area to be
drained, a long distance from the town and the abyss, investments were too high and a new WSUD
solution was proposed. Using existing grassed at town surfaces (by the road and owned by the town) a
rain garden has been constructed which drains part of the 25 mm of rain from surfaces along the town
roads. Defined degree of pre-treatment remained the same as for the lagoon with extended retention
where all waters were drained.
In Fig. 7 (a) is shown constructed Stanga rain garden in Rovinj just after the end of hydro-sowing,
although plants have not been bedded yet, whilst Figure 7 (b) presents a typical cross section of the
rain garden. A portion of storm water from main land pipe as well as the secondary road collectors
retention flow in the rain garden at unused green areas which landscape would also be renovated.

Figure 7 (a) Rain garden Stanga in Rovinj

2.4

b) A cross-section of the rain garden

System at the Monsena-Valdaliso tourist village in Rovinj

The existing Monsena tourist village is a densely developed area with runoff coefficients even up to
0.7. The village is located by the Adriatic coast at terrain with an average slope between 15% and
20%. During area development and increase of accommodation facilities (terrain devastation and
housing works), also reconstruction of infrastructure systems has also been performed. The existing
storm water system is connected by a short outlet pipe directly to the sea. During heavy rainfall and
runoff over the terrain and the beach usually appeared significant and deep ravines appear. Additional
landscape shaping at new apartment village as an application of WSUD provides significant savings of
investments. The pre-treated water is filtered trough rain gardens into the terrain. Fig. 8 (a) presents
the designed solution (Starum, Studio-Kappo, 2011) of the reconstructed Monsena apartment village,
whilst Figure 8(b) presents facilities of drainage from roof.

Figure 8 (a) Planned WSUD solution Monsena

Figure 8 (b) Drainage from house roof

A hotel is located at the northern part from the apartment village, and at the southern is restaurant with
set surroundings. The next step with regard to the landscape and horticultural surroundings
7

arrangement was to form a terrain and in that way solve the drainage problem too. In addition it was
planned to gather all water on certain places concerning a decrease of irrigation as much as possible by
using Mediterranean herbs in the first year of their growth, and then to irrigate the areas using water
from the water supply lines. As a part of complete development, reusing of grey water for irrigation
has also been considered. The return of investments and the decrease in the consumption of water and
electrical energy is planned by means of planning and design of landscape, architecture design and
infrastructure systems. The characteristics of the location due to collected water at the upstream areas
that further investments at the lower parts and facilities could be significantly smaller.

THE CURRENT STATE OF THE APPLIED WSUD SYSTEMS CASE

STUDIES OF THE SYSTEMS IN CITIES OF PULA AND ROVINJ

After several years of exploitation of constructed depicted modern solutions those can be compared to
traditional drainage approach, accounting for the results gained at certain locations and watersheds.
3.1

Closed drainage system with lagoons for pre-treatment and discharge

into the karst like terrain

Previously constructed systems of lagoons for treatment of storm water from roads, show significant
differences in the means of water collection and pre-treatment in function of the lagoons:

With regard to their functionality they are not satisfactory, including retention, purification
and release of water underground there is no inflow into Lagoons ,

Large exhaustion of the surrounding terrain demand larger investments.

Significant investments for closed infrastructure system throughout the route.

Additional investments with regard to ensuring the approach service roads.

The inconvenience of accidents has not been confirmed (trucks accidents of pollution).

Aesthetically unacceptable, not fitting in with the surrounding landscape

3.2

Open drainage systems with lagoons for pre-treatment and discharge of

water into the karst like terrain

Characteristics of the open systems based on WSUD which are important to notice:

With regard to their functionality they are not satisfactory, including retention, purification
and release of water underground there is no inflow into Lagoons (in either of the Lagoons
now built in Istria)

Large exhaustion of the surrounding terrain larger investments

A slightly lower investment compared to the construction of a closed system throughout the
route

Additional investments with regard to ensuring the approach service road

The inconvenience of accidents has not been confirmed (tank trucks turning over and other
such things)

Aesthetically unacceptable, not fitting in with the surrounding landscape

3.3

Traditional drainage systems from town beltways and streets by means

of drains, drainage grates and pipelines with separators for lubricants
and oils

Classical drainage systems in the last 20 years have proved extremely efficient with regard to the
retention of the peak inflows, the purification of precipitation waters as well as in regard to the
maintenance of such systems especially as far as coastal cities are concerned. However, the specific
problem is mixed sewage system drainage. Although the system has been separate over the last years,
the main drainage channels have remained mixed and all sewage waters are drained through the
towns purification devices, whilst where possible, the excess of precipitation waters is released into
the underground area through absorption draw-wells.

These are not satisfactory with regard to the decrease in peak inflows

Questionable functionality of separators without previous retention which results in a

questionable purification process before release into the recipients.

Extremely large investments have been made in ensuring the supplement terrain for retention,
separators both under and above the ground due to the busyness of all town corridors and, in
some cases, the complete impossibility of execution

The inconvenience of accidents has not been assured

Aesthetically unacceptable, impossible to include in the town surroundings

Additional costs for maintenance of the drain, drainage grates and pipelines (after each heavy
rainfall, windy or snowy conditions)

Impossibility of maintaining roads (especially through the new ways, by using recycled
asphalt) due to the large number of drainage facilities in the road body itself

Multiply larger initial investments for maintenance

3.4

Integral drainage approach by using the existing grassed over surface

by the road and separating islands and/or by drainage layers under
surfaces

These are satisfactory with regard to the decrease of peak inflows

Purification is performed on all grassed over surfaces as well as on drainage layers under each
surface whether this is a car park, a road or a grassed over surface

There are no additional investments with regard to covering additional town areas

The risk of accident remains at the place it appears, there is no place for passing into the
underground area

Aesthetically, socially and ecologically accepted in accordance with the newest drainage
trends

The possibility of maintaining roads and additional savings with the use of recycled asphalt or
surfaces that are permeable to water (porous asphalt, concrete cubes etc.)

Initial investment and latter maintenance several times cheaper

3.4.1

Integral drainage approach on the tourist village areas

These are satisfactory with regard to the decrease of peak inflows

Purification is performed on all grassed over surfaces as well as on the drainage layers under
each surface whether this is a car park, a road or a grassed over surface

Water harvesting from all surfaces

There is a possibility of landscape arrangement for the whole area with less necessity for
irrigation

Initial investments and latter maintenance several times cheaper as well as there being a
decrease in the costs of industrial/tourist water and electrical energy

With the aim of comparing the solutions of urban precipitation water drainage by means of the
classical system or through the Integral approach, Table 1 shows compared analysis of elements with
regard to drainage in Nazor Street in Pula.
Table 1. Comparison of the classical and integral drainage solutions in Nazor Street in Pula
Traditional approach

Integral approach

Sewage system pipes with drains 69

drains necessary as well as a pipeline with
DIA700 mm on the downstream section

Pipeline with DIA 250 mm, last pipe of DIA

400 mm , 2 inlet grates, 3 rain gardens, 1
absorption dry-well, 1 infiltration trench, kerb
stones on the downstream section as part of the
road with an integral drainage channel

At the downstream section it is necessary

to accept flow of Qmax 606 lps from
closed pipe system in Pragrande trunk

At the downstream section to accept a retained

flow of Q max 206 l/s into the Pragrande trunk

Total price for storm water system

Total price for the storm water system

215 000,00 EUR

100 000,00 EUR

Upper areas abandoned grassed

surfaces, flooding in the downstream
areas

Up flow set grassed over surfaces, prevented

and significantly decreased flooding in the
downstream sections

No influence to social and aesthetic

component

Economic, aesthetic and ecological influence at

the level of the entire eco-system (already
given)

It can be seen that the investment value has immediately been decreased, that an aesthetic and social
function has immediately been achieved (ten trees planted, benches and stone walls for inhabitants
positioned) and flooding was decreased in the downstream section which was the main aim.
Maintenance savings will only be seen after the plants have reached their designed height (decorative
herbs mowing once a year, bushes without the necessity of intense irrigation after a year), whilst
real purification results will be seen after continuos monitoring has been installed. On applying an
Integral approach as a pilot project in these areas, a solution to the drainage problem in Nazor Street in
Pula achieved the immediately expected results.
10

In the last couple of years, various drainage systems have been used in the Istria area but without more
serious research into investments, especially of maintenance costs, there will be no possibility of
achieving higher quality solutions and benefits in line with the Integral approach.
Support should always take place as early as possible in the planning process and subsequently at the
various planning levels.
Unfortunately, the drainage mega systems used until now have not given the expected results, but the
financial crisis in the cities has meant that these systems have begun to be used in inhabited areas as
well. Table 2 shows the savings of initial investments in the previous drainage projects (Starum,
Studio Kappo, 2009 2012). Each of these projects has its own special characteristics and none of
them has been carried out without the involvement of a number of different professions. For classical
design systems and road drainage, besides civil engineers, landscape architects, architects and the
Investor also participated. Without collective participation this kind of project could not even be
initiated. In the future the accent will be placed on the maintenance of such systems with the
obligatory inclusion of the public, from planning to education.
The Table 2 shows the savings of the initial investments on previous drainage projects (Starum, Studio
Kappo, 2009-2012). In the autumn 2012, the programme of maintenance and continuous monitoring
will be carried out in Nazor Street, whilst with tourist houses and water savings, which is paid as
tourist or industrial water; we are endeavouring to carry out analysis of investment savings and the
reuse of water.
Table 2 Savings of the initial investments compared to the classical drainage system
Facilities road with precipitation
drainage and landscape arrangement

Savings compared to the classical project

Riva Street in Pula road, drainage,

landscape

550 000,00 EUR

City beltway I phase drainage,

landscape

1 300 000,00 EUR

Stanga village in Rovinj drainage,

landscape

660 000,00 EUR

Monsena tourist village drainage and

landscape

700 000,00 EUR

Nazor Street in Pula road, drainage,

landscape

100 000,00 EUR

Municipality of Stupnik footpath by the

main road with drainage and landscape
solutions

100 000,00 EUR

From the analysis carried out on the constructed systems we can draw a conclusion that the largest
savings have been made where there were the most grassed over surfaces, and this amounts from 30%
in densely built areas to 90% and more where there are more grassed over surfaces. The already
assembled drainage systems on the highways and beltways show that by integral planning and
especially by choosing the route and fitting it into the environment as well as by the landscape

11

arrangement, significant investment savings (in the period of study and preliminary solutions) can be
achieved together with system functionality itself.
The earlier cooperation takes place, the better the different demands can be coordinated and the more
likely satisfactory solutions can be produced.

CONCLUSION

The necessity to introduce an Integral drainage approach does not only regard a cheaper and more
efficient solution for urban drainage, but opens new possibilities for city development with the
improvement of aesthetic and perceptive values, an ecological and educative base for living in a
complete eco-system that is the city itself.
The starting of planning and the execution of decentralized drainage systems from urban and natural
areas in the examples of Pula and Rovinj have already shown large differences with regard to the
construction investments and effects on the environment as well as to maintenance at the beginning of
their utilization and have been compared to the classical system,. However, they have also shown
specific characteristics where each object is different with regard to its fitting into the landscape and
the purpose of drainage (protection from flooding, releasing into the underground area or water
harvesting). For this reason, it should be mentioned that efficient drainage can only be applied if all
participants from the various professions as well as the users are included in the planning as soon as
possible. What the Republic of Croatia now needs following these pilot projects is the opening of
wider expert discussions and probably a change in the regulations themselves.
Advantages of this kind of spatial planning ensure the development of the multidisciplinary of all
solutions and city development, from urban planning to the green and multi-use corridors, complete
landscape solutions and solutions with regard to the towns streets, not only when considered as
construction and traffic facilities but completely, through the so called, streetscape. They also ensure
the improvement of the general image of the city, where the drainage of precipitation waters no longer
presents a problem even with regard to the economic and functional situation, but a place where water
becomes what is its original function, part of an area and an unavoidable part of life on Earth.

5
5.1

REFERENCES
List of references

5.2.1. Online references

Hoyer J., Dickhaut W., Kronawitter L., Weber B., 2011: Water Sensitive Urban Design (Principles
and Inspiration for Sustainable Stormwater Management in the City of the Future, Manual,
(2011),
Hafen
City
University,
Hamburg,
Germany,
Final
Version
http://www.switchtraining.eu/case-studies/ (accessed September, 2011)
5.2.2. References in languages other than English
Zagreb Faculty of Civil Engineering (2000): Study Drainage on roads protection from negative
effects, Institute of Hydro technical Engineering (leader of the Study: doc.dr.sc. Davor Malus
Zagreb, not published

12

IGH (2007) Adriatic highway, Section: Vodnjan Pula, 2.a Construction phase, Zagreb, not
published
Starum (2004) Town of Pore beltway drainage of precipitation waters, Pore, not published
Starum (2007) Crveni Vrh Golf Course- Kempinski precipitation waters and drainage, irrigation,
Umag, not published
Starum (2009) Collector of precipitation sewage water as part of settlements St. Vid and Valbrun,
Rovinj, not published
Starum Studio Kappo (2010) Nazor Street in Pula road with drainage of precipitation waters and
landscape arrangement, Pula, not published
Starum Studio Kappo (2011) Drainage in the part of the Stanga settlement Rain garden - road
with drainage of precipitation waters and landscape arrangement, Rovinj, not published
Starum Studio Kappo (2011) Monsena Valdaliso Tourist Village drainage of precipitation and
surface waters and landscape arrangement, Rovinj, not published
Starum Studio Kappo (2012) Town of Pula beltway road with drainage of precipitation waters and
landscape arrangement, Pula, not published

13

9th International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling

Belgrade 2012

Integral approach to the design of stormwater drainage

in the town of Pula
Tatjana Uzelac1, Katja Soi2, Josip Rubini3, Damir Prhat4
1

Starum Ltd., Croatia, tanja@starum.hr ,

Studio Kappo Ltd., Croatia, katja@studio-kappo.com,
3
Faculty of Civil Engineering Rijeka, Croatia, jrubinic@gradri.hr ,
4
City of Pula, Croatia, damir.prhat@pula.hr
2

ABSTRACT
The Town of Pula is one of the largest coastal towns in Croatia. Compared to
simillar towns in the region it has the lowest average amount of annual
precipitations, but has the most problems with stormwater drainage. There are
several reasons for this starting with the complex terrain topography that was
overlooked in the creation of spatial and planning documents, the unplanned
construction of urban facilities in the town areas that would, in their natural
conditions be flooded and long ago overloaded town sewer network. Expansion of
the town of Pula, wasnt followed by the development of its infrastructural systems
for reception, drainage and the disposal of its stormwaters, resulting in ever
growing stormwater drainage problem. The new drainage concept of the analysed
area of Pula, in accordance with modern world trends, has radically changed its
existing approach stormwaters tend to be kept and, in as large quantities as
possible, treated in the place they appear in the watershed. As well as this, the
project will present the results of analysis of natural influences that have a
dominant importance for the stormwater drainage procedure initially the
characteristics of the phenomenon of short-duration yet heavy rainfall and sea level
movements as well as their trends. Above all, we have tended to minimise the
quantity of stormwaters by holding and further infiltrating them in the terrain.
Special emphasis is placed on dislocated solutions of stormwater drainage in
natural depressions of suburban areas and special measures have been taken with
regard to the organisation of these areas as well as the need to allocate such an area
by means of spatial planning of their provisional retention.

KEYWORDS
town of pula, flooding, infiltration, local government regulations, urban stormwater system, wsud

INTRODUCTION

The biggest problems with stormwater drainage are in the very city center of Pula as well as in
suburban surfaces in the close towns hinterland, especially on the area of katari, Fojbon and
Valdebek. There are several reasons for this starting with the complex terrain topography that was
overlooked in the creation of spatial and planning documents, the unplanned construction of urban
facilities in the town areas that would, in their natural conditions be flooded and the long ago
overloaded net of town urban drainage system which main collector Pragrade passes through the very
town centre (Figure 1).

Figure. 1. Pula town - Main collectors and flooding areas

Several solutions were considered during the last thrity years in several documents, starting from the
Study of hydrology of stormwaters with determination of maximum proper quantity of watersheds in
the town of Pula (Productivity Foundation, 1981) and the Concept design for the precipitation
drainage in the town of Pula (Starum and Studio Kappo, 2011) which partly follows the Study on the
drainage in the town of Pula (Starum, 2003). During this period, within which the town watertight area
that were drained by town sewer system multiply raised, stormwaters were directed to the collector net
built during the period of Austro-Hungarian Monarchy. The newly constructed stormwater drainage
net was mainly dimensioned on 2 years return period. The main Pragrande collector capacity, due to
the raising watershed areas, flows directed to it as well as slow drainage due to the raising of the sea
level, not only that the capacity to accept new stormwater decreased, but the capacity for the existing
state became lower than 2 years return period so that each more significant rainfall caused growing
drainage problems. As the past drainage concept and traditional project approach did not consider the
appearance of large quantity of waters with high return periods, the water that is generally not drained
through the closed system of sewer channels, in case of these exceptional rainfall, constructed sytems
did not have the possibility of any controlled drainage. The additional problem was the terrain
topography itself with a series of depressions inside which, in case of significant rainfall, the
stormwaters of connected watershed areas not only retain, but their infiltration is additionally slower
due the the raise of the level of ground waters which on some locations even break out on the terrain
surface. Another problem is the town combined sewer system.

Because of the issues mentioned above, financial problems and impossibiliy to control the growing
urbanisation, we started with the pilot project of the Nazor Street in Pula. Here we solved the drainage
problem by the Integral approach known in the world as LID, BMP, WSUD and similar (Hoyer,
Dickhaut, Kronawitter, Weber, 2011). As the results proved to be more than positive (flooding
prevented, significant economic savings with aesthetic and social component), it was decided to carry
out the Concept design of stormwater drainage in the whole town of Pula according to the same model
(Figure 2).

Figure 2. Newly arranged Nazorova Street in Pula: a) Nazorova street bioretention, b) Nazorova
street - bioswale
The collection and treatment of stormwaters within the urban area before their complete or partial
infiltration into the terrain is carried out using an Integral approach: bioretention, rain gardens and
other "green infrastructure", combined with landscape planning. In doing so, the previously mentioned
usage of the landscape's prepared green surfaces in the town used for the disposition and treatment of
these stormwaters does not only significantly increase the quality of the area and the standard of
living, but also ensures the functional safety of stormwater drainage within the conditions of future
development of the town, providing reduced pressure on the existing combined sewer system.
The town of Pula local government has recognized this approach in which, without their help, such a
significant change couldt be initiated, both in the way of thinking and dealing with these waters. The
town of Pula is one of the first towns in the area where such a conceptual project has been accepted as
a course for further, sustainable development of the town area and of communal infrastructure.
Both the world and Croatian economic situation have imposed on local government units to change
their way of working and more importantly to spend budget resources responsibly. A systematic
approach to project management, innovation and responsibility are the key factors placed before the
town government.
By employing the multidisciplinary team work, previous knowledge and experience in the world and
in the EU (Hoyer, Dickhaut, Kronawitter, Weber, 2011) on areas which currently have or have had
similar problems, our aim is to achieve an optimal drainage solution which includes protection from
stormwaters. These solutions will have multiple effects on economic, ecological and social sectors.
Having in mind the growing stormwater drainage problem that appears in Mediterranean towns and
elsewhere, the integral planning and designing approach is only one of the activities necessary to be
carried out in order to manage, in a qualitative and sustainable way, the urban water system which can

certainly be considered amongst the most important parts of the development of communal
infrastructure and urban area.
The sustainable water management aimes to achieve the same qulity of water taken and given back to
the water resources, to reduce the losses, if there is no possibility of avoiding them, to the minimum,
as well as changes in the local hydrological cycle. In order to achieve that, it is necessary to built the
quality Urban Water System and then maintain and manage it efficiently in a way that it uses other
resources (human work, energy, chemical products) in as small amounts as possible. It is obvious
that the system should be controlled and managed efficiently and permanently in order to achieve a
sustainable environemnt and the system itself which is a complicated and arduous permanent task for
all civil engineers as well as other professionals without which the efficient management of the Urban
Water System could not be achieved today (Margeta, 2011).

INPUT DATA AND METHODOLOGY

Creation of the concept design for the stormwater drainage was carried out through the parallel
engineer and landscape approach which is using the multicriteria analisis in both cases and hich
overlaps the obtained results. We have analysed the existing state of sewer and natural watersheds in
the town, designed the hydrogeological map, done the hydrological analysis of watersheds, analysis of
urbanistic parameters (existing state of construction with pertaining coefficients of construction as
well as planned construction state with ne coefficients of drainage), the analysis of urban green and
natural green areas, level of protection of certain parts of the town, made the direction of the traffic
infrastructure development and strategy of the town of Pula development.
Based on these input data the hydraulic estimates were made. For the Nazorova Street we carried out
the analysis of pollution level and considered input data for the calculation of the level of pollution on
the area of individual watersheds.
Nazorova street is the pilot project where five different types of retention and purification of
stormwater are tested drainage well with the spillover for the upper part of the watershed,
bioretention with underground retention and drain cells for large part of the watershed, free-flowing
bioretention, drainage infiltration channel and impermeable bioretention separated by the
geomembrane from the terrain and for the protection from the high level of ground waters. Parallelly
we examined the possible plants that could be planted, from Mediterranean plants to decoration herbs
which support longer drought and longer humid periods.
Together with local authorities and based on presented data, the way of solving the issue with
stormwaters and selection of the system according to certain criteria, has been determined.
2.1

Input data

After the creation of the pilot project, we started with the conceptual design through which were
respected the following foundations: hydrological conditions, hydrogeological bases, geomorphology
and existing sewer system
Besides the terrain morphology, use of the terrain and technical solutions for drainage itself, and
oscillation of the ground waters and sea levels, hydrological conditions have dominant influence on
drainage processes short-duration rainfall as well as the sea and ground waters levels. Pula has
relatively small annual quantity of precipitations (average amount for the reference 30 years period
from 1961-90 is 847 mm) and it is classified amongst coastal towns with less precipitation, and on the

other side it has the most common problems with flooding of urban areas caused by stormwaters as the
consequence of appearance of short-duration yet heavy rainfall.
According to the analysis carried out with regard to the registered short-duration yet heavy rainfall at
the Pula ombrograph station (1957-2009), intenstity of rainfall are significantly lower than on the area
of Croatia where the rainfall extremes are of suitable duration. Although the presumptions that the
growing frequence of floods occur because of the increased rainfall extremes due to climatic
changes/variations, the analysis of maximum annual rainfall trends did not confirm that. The Figure 3
presents the illustration of movement of annual maximum quantity of rainfall that lasted from 10 min
to 1 hour, and very simiar results were obtained by analysing the duration of 2-24 hours.

Figure 3. Movement of registered annual rainfall that lasted from 10 min to 1 hour Pula (1957-2009)
In the given figures non significant trends have been determined Positive and negative trends are not
grouped based on their duration, but mostly appear alternately. The largest growing trend of maximum
annual precipitation values was registered at 2 hours long rainfall (0.09 % which, on the level of the
whole 53 years long series, results with the increase of just 1.9 mm). A slightly more marked trend of
decrease in maximum rainfall depth that last from 4 to 12 hours (0.11 %) and which, on the level of a
complete 53 years series, results ith the decrease of maximum depth of 4 hours long rainfall to around
2.7 mm, whilst of those which last 12 hours is set around 3.4 mm. Therefore, it can be concluded that
none significant increase of maximum annual quantity of rainfall has been registered regardless the
duration of the rainfall itself. The phenomenon of flooding certain urban areas in Pula can be
connected to the increase of the watertight areas whose construction was not followed by upgrades to
its drainage system. In that sense even the conditions of stormwaters drainage and reception into
collector systems become every day more critical.
In the case of intense rainfall and completely saturated ground with the water from previous rainfall as
well as when the level of ground waters is high, the surface runoff and flooding of lower parts of the
town occurs.

Increase of construction coefficients, combined sewer system and geomorphological changes created
on the watershed make situations worse (Figure 4).

Figure 4. Existing sewer system and geomorphological changes on the entire watershed
Green town areas partially alleviate these situations, but are not used enough. The town of Pula has
large potential of exploiting green areas for drainage needs, but until now, their use has not been
analysed for that purpose. The old town center has the least resources as in some parts the construction
area covers 100 % of surfaces. However, by applying urbanistic and conservative measures, even here
the situation can significantly improve.
By analysing all input data, bases, spatial plans and existing, mostly combined, sewer system, the
methodology of creating the conceptual design for stormwater drainage in the town of Pula has been
determined.
2.2

Methodology

Drainage planning based on Integral approach was carried out on the following way:
1. Watershed analysis by natural and anthropogenic factors
2. Planning of main drainage channels and recipients
3. Hydraulic estimates (SCS, Retentio, Rational)
4. Determination of one or more techniques for landscape planning depending on the watershed
dimensions
6

5. Analysis of dividing the system from combined to separate

6. Planning and arrangement of some parts of settlements, park, square, parking, etc. by applying
the landscape arrangement and determination of green infrastructure coridors
7. Adjusting the solutions with the town of Pula authorities

TOWN OF PULA STORMWATER DRAINAGE CONCEPTUAL

DESIGN

The way the sewer system was planned and constructed by now the combined sewer system with
direct drainage of all waters into the sea should bear changes. By analysing the construction works
before and after urbanisation process as well as by estimating the surface flows, watersheds where the
largest outflows appear and where the state gets worse by raising the drainage coefficient have been
determined. According to the existing state on the watershed as well as to the planned construction
coefficients based on the data provided by town of Pula authorities, drainage coefficients have been
created (Figure 5). Based to urbanistic construction coefficients, average drainage coefficeints by
single watersheds have been calculated. The existing state of construction was analysed from the
orthophoto base of the town of Pula and, for the easier comparison, was transfered into cartogram.
Main drainage channels were planned according to the results obtained from estimates carried out on
individual watersheds and based on the increase of draianing and existing combine sewer system For
the most overloaded town system, namely the central town system, we carried out the more detailed
analysis of flows and time necessary for retention with regard to the available green areas and
construction characteristics of combined sewer system as well as with parallel division of the system
and construction together with Jadran project (Pula Herculanea, 2011).
Based on the type of terrain and covering, area purpose, terrain permeability, landscape and urbanistic
conditions, and sanitary protection zones, the recipients have been determined.

Figure 5. Town of Pula wider area: a) Existing construction coefficients ,b). Planned construction
coefficients

Planning of the main drainage channels was carried out according to the estimates and by combining
the town of Pula Master Plan, main collectors of combined sewer system ijana, Pragrande, Vidikovac
as well as Dolinka collector of stormwaters. For the central town system the detailed hydraulic
estimates has been determinated using the Rational and SCS method and the system has ben modelled
according to mathematic parameters. Based on presented analysis, created pilot project of Nazorova
Street as well as measurements of levels of pollution and rainfall, these system demands calibration in
order to be manageable in the future and in order to take all further measures for decrease of floods
and pollution of the whole watershed area. One of the suggestions includes the application of
techniques for landscape arrangement. The Figure 6 presents watersheds with maximum flows and
maximum increase of drainage coefficient.

Figure 6. Analysis of maximum flows and maximum increase of drainage coefficients

3.1

Results of the multi-criteria analysis with regard to the area for the
application of Integral approach

By analysing the graphical contributions as well as the potential green areas as the result of multicriteria analysis of the resources area, it is visible that the town of Pula has large possibilities of
organising the integral care of stormwater drainage (Figure 7).

Problematic areas are all constructed areas where the construction coefficient equals 100%.
Significant limitations appear in historical part of the town, with potential conservatory
restrictions, financial limitations and long construction works, cemeteries and areas of sanitary
protection as well. The condition can be improved by applying conservative measures (old
ways of drainage and pavement).

There are less resources areas in the area of dense construction - south-western part from the
town historical centre and from the shipyard. Due to the smaller areas surrounded by better
resources, it is much easier to carry out the Integral drainage in the historical part.

Resources of average significance are spread on the whole territory and towards the suburbs
can be found the larger ones as well. These are town areas with the construction coefficient
from 0.3 0.7.
8

Large resources are located on all green areas: parks, protected green areas, forest areas on the
edge of settlements where the construction coefficient is under 0.3.

The linear green systems are actually resources used for taking care of the smaller, but
efficient street woks on the green infiltration systems.

Figure 7. Town green areas resources and the net of linear green systems
By analysing the town areas with the orthophoto base and taking into consideration the town of Pula
traffic net, places where could be applied the multi-usable infrastructure corridors, the so called Green
infrastructure, shown on Figure 8 have been determined.

Figure 8. Potentially suitable areas for solving the problem of stormwater disposition a) Green
infrastructure b) Park areas

3.2

Results of hydraulic estimates and levels of pollution

According to the hydraulic estimates of the central town watershed (Starum, Studio Kappo, 2011) as
well by estimating the levels of pollution by Simple method (Uzelac, Veli, 2012) in the Nazorova
Street, the following results have been reached:

According to the estimated results, by prolongation of the time of concentration from 15 to 30,
45 or 60 min the surface flow, drained through the central town system, can be decreased by
35%, 49% or even 57% as shown in the Table 1.

It is important to mention that the retention effect depends largely on the way of execution of
retention itself, its not the same whether it is the retention with continuous, but decreased
maximum exit or the retention in which the whole inflow in the time of surface load stops.

According to the achieved flows and detected green areas, to check the real possibility of
retention of stormwaters on watersheds the framework analysis to determine the possible
retention depths has been created. ; obtained depth is aproximative and does not surpass 15
cm.

Annual level of pollution in Nazarova Street is decreased by bioretention from 2300 kg/year to
around 270 kg/year of which, from green areas less than 3%, from roads 37% and from urban
areas around 60%.

By multi-criteria and Integral approach as well as by superimposing all results, the conceptual design
map with regard to the drainage in the town of Pula has been created. The Figure 9 shows the concept
design of the town of Pula drainage system with potential green surfaces with the purpose of drainage
and purification through the main and secondary drainage net of stormwaters. Each watershed of the
precipitation sewer has been marked with different colour in a way that main collectors are bolded ,
whilst secondary have the same colour but are not bolded. From the map we can also see the most
problematic areas (grey colour) where, besides the landscape and urbanistic solutions other measures
of protection from town flooding will have to be taken.
Table 1. Parallel results analysis on the watershed of the central town wazetrshed with all variations
Average
Catchment
Retention
Retention
Retention
Retention
drainage
( ha )
15 min
30 min
45 min
60 min
coefficient
l/s

l/s

l/s

l/s

Channel
1

12

0,5

1544

1012

790

663

Channel
2

1.65

0,5

212

139

109

91

Channel
3

2,20

0,4

245

160

125

105

2001

1311

1024

859

35 %

49 %

57 %

Total

Difference compared to the 15 min

10

Figure 9 Conceptual design of the stormwater drainage in the town of Pula

3.3

Guidelines and measures for the system application and maintenance

As very important drainage component the guidelines for the systems application and maintenance
have been defined as follows:
3.3.1

Guidelines for lower town areas in constructed parts

In the lower zones (max. slope of the area up to 5%) is recommended the execution of the drainage
system integrally with roads, landscape arrangement and area purpose. It refers to streets, town
squares, parks, dividing islands, roundabouts, substitute of min. 1 parking place in one way streets
with infiltration areas, use of drainage asphalts on parcking lots, permeable coverings of all areas
dedicated to public use (grass cubicles, stone in the sand, porpous concrete fancy goods, etc)., rain
gardens, infiltration vases, roof gardens green roofs as well as prevention of barriers wherever thats
possible (on streets and parking lots it means classic kerbstones) and other measures to decrease
drainage and retain the waters in the watershed and protection from retention of stormwaters from the
upper parts of the town.
It is also recommended, instead of present drains, on places where is not possible to solve otherwise
the stormwater drainage on the roads, to use the linear drainage system. The street slope should
usually be angled both for the drainage and for the crossroad adjustment.

11

3.3.2

Guidelines for upper town areas in constructed parts

In upper town zones with sloping areas of 5 to 12 % and more, according to the all mentioned
measures, it is not necessary only to unburden the drainage system, but to take measures on wider
scale, that is on wider area of the whole watershed, not only streets that gravitates towards the
precipitation collector. In fact, generated flows on the wider watershed area cause water flows on the
roads, and roads itself become the collectors for surface waters. During the proves of designing the
drainage system by landscape techniques of the surrounding area, direct inflows to the streets from the
opened and ripid surfaces shouls be prevented.
3.3.3

Guidelines for unbuilt zones in some parts of the ton and in the areas
outside the town

Apply all techniques mentioned in previous points except that in the areas outside the town besides the
canalizing, decreasing the drainage and retention of waters in their on watershed, the eco-remediation
should also be applied.
3.3.4

Bioretentions, rain gradens, infiltration channels, vases and extensions

Services for slowing down, retention and purification of stormwaters. At larger inflows, stormwaters
are at first retentioned and purified, then by the system of ground drainage, through mixtures of
soil/sand and mulch slowly released in the stormwater sewer or in the terrain. Time of retention,
thickness of filter layers, choice of plants, drains dimensions and way of release are solved
individually and in conditions on site.
Usually we use them on relatively small watersheds and in densly urbanized parts of settlements
where the drainage coefficient surpasses the 0.5. They can also be used on the very polluted areas such
as industrial areas and petrol stations.
They must not be used in the water protection zones and in the areas where the water is used for water
supply. In the areas with high levels of ground water, it is recommended to dimension them above the
ground waters height and divide the layers with geomembrane.
The design itself, form and position depend on the possibilities on the terrain and are designers issue.
Regardless the design, each of these systems includes five main parts: pre-treatment, treatment,
transfer and after retention through layers and on the surface, and decrease of maintenance work and
landscape arrangement.
3.3.5

Solutions by phases and criteria of emergency

1. Classification of the system according to flow rate

2. Division of the system main precipitation channels in accordance with the Jadran project
(Pula Herculanea, 2011) (parallel with the construction of main sanitary channels and
pumping station)
3. Watersheds with largest flooding
4. Watersheds with largest increase of construction coefficient
By superimposing and evaluating individual collectors and each watershed, the phases of the system
construction have been created.

12

By summing up the points and according to the mentioned emergency criteria, construction priorities
were achieved. According to the expectations and previos analysis, the Pragranade collector won most
points (24), then the ijana collector (21), Vidikovac and Sv. Polikarp (20), etc.
The central town system has 4 subwaterheds which have the largest influence on the town area:
Pragrande central town watershed, ijana watershed and Vidikovac watershed as well as the Sv.
Polikarp Street watershed. On these watersheds occur the highest amount of draining, the largest
percentage of construction and largest problems with separation of systems from combined to
separate, whilst they as such cause the most problems on the purification device Valkane and on the
pumping stations of the combined coastal collector.
In the same way as watersheds in the lower part of the town, they are most threatened by the
stormwater flows from the upper parts of the town. These are the watersheds where the construction of
the main precipitation chanells is necessary but by applying the integral approach where will be, at the
same time, built the road, divided the system along the main channels and be applied one of the
landscape arrangement techniques depending on the intervention.
On the external part of the watershed the Pragrande valley, the retention of precipitation and surface
waters should be solved by applying the ecoremediations.

CONCLUSION

Having in mind the growing stormwater drainage problem that appears in Mediterranean towns and
elsewhere, the integral planning and designing approach is only one of the activities necessary to carry
out in order to manage, in a quality and sustainable way, the urban water system which can certainly
be considered amongst the most important parts of the development of communal infrastructure and
urban area.
The integral approach, which is a relatively new in our areas and which has been applied and
developed in the world for the last 20 years, demands the complete attention and contruibution of all
participants in the process of planning, designing and managing the urban water system. The
profession should certainly act as stimulator for changes and understanding of importance and
influence of the quality management of the urban water system on the society in general. It should also
influence the change of political consciousness and understanding the importance of this problem. The
problem of the lack of political will and resistance towards changes is often an important limitation
factor. The positive example are the town of Pula authorities where this system is integrated in towns
regulatations through spatial plans and Decision on drainage.
As well as in technical disciplines, the management should also be approached integrally as there is a
whole series of limitation factors which significantly influence the quality of management results:
financial, personnel, organisation, infrastructure, technology, legal, environment, cultural, sociological
and civil which imposes in front of the town authorities new demands and challenges that should be
handled in an adequate multidsciplinary way and who should answer with full coordination of all
interested parties with unavoidable inclusion of the public which is very interested and aware of the
ecological, economic and social influences on the Urban water system.

13

REFERENCES

5.1
5.1.1

List of references
Online references

Hoyer J., Dickhaut W., Kronawitter L., Weber B., 2011: Water Sensitive Urban Design ( Principles
and Inspiration for Sustainable StormWater Management in the City of the Future, Manual,
(2011),
Hafen
City
University,
Hamburg,
Germany,
Final
Version
http://www.switchtraining.eu/case-studies/ (accessed September, 2011)
5.1.2

References in languages other than English

Faculty of Civil Engineering in Rijeka (2010): Analysis of time series of short and strong
precipitations in Pula HTP and ITP curves (bearer of the task Rubinic, J.) Rijeka, non
publicated.
Margeta J. (2011) Worldwide changes and urban water system management in 2011, Graevinar 63,
professional paper, Zagreb, 2011.
Pula Herculanea Ltd. (2011) Jadranski project, archive
Starum (2003) Studija odvodnje grada Pule (author Uzelac T.) (Study on the town of Pula drainage)
engleski), Pula 2003, non publicated
Starum, Studio-Kappo, (2011) Idejni koncept odvodnje oborinskih voda grada Pule (author of the
concept Uzelac T.), (Conceptual design for the stormwater drainage in the ton of Pula), Pula
2011, non publicated
Uzelac T., Veli M. (2012) Analiza optereenja teretom zagaenja Nazorove ulice u Puli (Analysis of
the level of pollution in Nazorova Street in Pula), Pula, 2012, non publicated
Zavod za produktivnost (1981): Studija oborinskih voda sa utvrivanjem maksiamlnih mjerodavnih
vodenih koliina slivovi grada Pule. (task bearer Patrevi, V.), (Productivity Foundation
(1981): Study on the stormwaters with determination of maximum proper quantites of water town of Pula watersheds), Zagreb 1981, non publicated

14

9th International Conference on Urban Drainage Modelling

Belgrade 2012

Sea Level Influence on High Water Occurrence in

Coastal Urban Areas Umag case study
Josip Rubini1 , Elvis ic2, Vanja Trava3
1

Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Rijeka, Croatia, josip.rubinic@gradri.hr

Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Rijeka, Croatia, elvis.zic@gradri.hr
3
Faculty of Civil Engineering, University of Rijeka, Croatia, vanja.travas@gradri.hr
2

ABSTRACT
High water occurrences in coastal areas have multiple causes and are determined
by different influences the storm water and other related hydrological
occurrences in the inflow catchment area, technical and non-structural solutions for
urban water drainage, as well as in the often neglected component of the design
solution the sea level states at the watercourse and the storm water sewage
collection facility inflows into the sea.
Based on the example of the city of Umag and the occurrence of an extremely large
flood wave in September 2010, this paper analyses the contribution of particular
influences to this flood, with special regard to the sea influence on the evacuation
capacity of the Umag stream canal. Both time series of the short-duration yet heavy
rainfall and sea level variations were analyzed in order to determine changes in the
boundary conditions during the period of time in which the canal drainage system
of the Umag stream was constructed.
The modelling of the drainage canal maximum capacity was performed with
respect to different occurrence probability at its inflow and the dependence on the
sea level and projections for potential changes in the future are suggested in terms
of further reduction of the high water evacuation possibility related to the possible
consequences of expected climate changes/variations and the expected rise of the
sea level.

KEYWORDS
Umag stream, flood, urban water drainage, canal capacity, sea level dependence

INTRODUCTION

Risks of the high water occurrence are increased by processes of rapid littoralization and the
development of urban areas. When analyzing high water occurrence, floods of catastrophic
proportions are mostly considered as they are related to flooding of extremely large areas and often
1

accompanied by great material and human losses. According to the data provided by EM-DAT agency
in 2008, the total number of floods with a large flooded area in the Mediterranean was extremely high
for the period from 1950 to 2007 (28 floods in Italy, 22 in France, 22 in Spain, 40 in Algeria, 23 in
Morocco, 19 in Greece, etc.). During the same period the estimated number of flood casualties in the
Mediterranean is also extremely high (664 casualties in Italy, 194 in France, 1284 in Spain, 1632 in
Algeria, 1547 in Morocco, 83 in Greece, 945 in Tunisia, etc.) (Clarke and Rendell, 2010).
Much more frequent and with more substantial material losses are floods of a smaller extent, which
are the result of the local rainfall and, in coastal areas, also rainfall in combination with high sea level
occurrence (Jovanovi, 1974; Rubini, 2010, 2011). Increasing the number of construction of
infrastructure facilities aimed for flood protection, which has accompanied development of urban
areas, has not decreased either the number nor the intensity of such floods. They are still quite
frequent, even more so when compared to the previous flooding occurences of non-urban areas.
Examples of such floods have lately also been observed in the Croatian coastal area (Oani et al.,
1998; Uzelac, 2009; Tudor et al., 2011; Plako-Vrnak et al., 2011). One of such floods dating from
September 2009 is analyzed in this paper - the flood occurred in the north-west part of Istria and the
waters from the Umag stream flooded the city of Umag. Umag is a small size city with about 13600
inhabitants. However, this flood caused damage of about 7 million Euro, luckily without any
casualties.
The main cause for this high water occurrence was the abundant rainfall in the Umag stream
catchment area. After regulating and relocating waters from the previous main Umag stream bed into
the so called Southern arm, the largest part of the citys outer waters are directed towards the sea
through the very city area where also the stream inlet is situated (Figure 1).

Figure 1. Situational overview of the Umag stream main flow and its Southern arm.
Legend: 1 - pressure section of the Umag stream, 2 - covered section of the Umag stream,
2

3 - southern arm of the Umag stream, 4 - main flow of the Umag stream.
When analyzing the high water occurrence from September 2010, the peak flows have on multiple
occasions exceeded the Umag stream bed capacity, whose downstream, covered part flows through a
narrower urban area. When analyzing the causes of the mentioned high water, the system operator was
concerned that the mentioned high water was so prominent partly due to the sea backwater to the
Umag stream inlet and partly due to the extremely high rainfall as the result of recent climate changes.
The performed analyses (by Faculty of Civil Engineering in Rijeka, 2010) concluded differently it
was suggested that neither was there an increase of the intensive rainfall which could be attributed to
any climate changes/variations, nor did the sea backwater contribute to the mentioned flood. However,
it was estimated that the element of the global sea level rise, as the consequence of recent climate
changes/variations, could have a large indirect impact on reducing the storm water evacuation capacity
and, consequently could affect the high water occurrence in the future. This paper therefore considers
modelling of the drainage channel capacity with respect to the sea level dependence and projections of
the expected sea level rise projections are given. It is assumed that even now, when planning and
designing infrastructure facility objects, special attention should be paid to the possible estimated
scenarios about the sea level rise which could manifest themselves during the expected lifetime of the
construction.

METHODOLOGY AND DATA

The paper analyzes components of the two different high water occurrence the analysis of the
recorded flood from September 2010 and the analysis of the flood occurrence under different
conditions for different projections of mean sea level rise due to global climate changes/variations.
During the analysis of the recorded flood all available climate, hydrological and marigraph data were
used along with the recorded high water traces. Inhabitants were also interviewed. Projections of
possible sea level variation changes were provided for different scenarios. Recent information (upi
et al., 2011) was also analyzed with respect to the mean sea level rise recorded on the analyzed
marigraph stations situated on the east coast of the Adriatic (compatible to the newest IPCC
estimations on 2050 cm sea level rise till the end of the 21st century). Croatia has drawn the Fifth
National Report according to the United Nations Frame Conference on Climate Change (UNFCCC)
(Official Gazette / 2010), which defines the state and the strategy of adapting to the expected climate
changes. Till the end of the 21st century two alternative scenarios of the sea level rise are to be
expected one of 50 cm and the other of 88 cm.
The hydraulic analysis was based on classical hydraulic principles, that is, the equations which define
the flow in sewage water flows such as the Umag stream. In order to perform a valid hydraulic
analysis, one of the essential ingredients is the correct quantification of head loss h. Since the
considered part of the Umag stream is a close and the inside flow is a consequence of pressure
gradient, instead of using the Manning or Chezy equation (to relate the flow velocity v with the
gradient of total mechanical energy), the Darcy-Weisbach equation (with as a friction coefficient)
should be used to for this purpose. Furthermore, apart the frictional pressure head loss over the
channel length L, the local pressure head loss on the inlet and the outflow of the channel is considered
and characterized with non-dimensional parameters in and out respectively. Since the flow geometry
is not circular, the geometric characteristic Dp in the Darcy-Weisbach equation

v 2
L
in out

2g
Dp

(1)

should be also specified as (FHWA, 1985):

Dp

4 BH
2B H

(2)

to represent the rectangular flow area (covered U-cross section). By specifying all the needed
parameters, the flow velocity v, and hence the flow discharge Q follows from equation (1) as:

h 2 g

in out L

Dp

(3)

If it is assumed that the flow is turbulent, which is quite reasonable for the considered channel and the
assumed boundary conditions, the previous equation is not explicit, but implicit. Namely, if the flow
Reynolds number Re exceeds its critical value, the Darcy friction coefficient becomes a function of
Re and absolute roughness . It is assumed that can be calculated through the Swamee-Jain equation:

0.25

5.74
log
0.9
3.7 D p Re

(4)

This results in the unknown velocity v appearing also on the right hand side of equation (4). It is a well
known hydraulic computational framework and is usually treated iteratively. Clearly, in the first
iterative cycle, the velocity v is computed assuming no friction. Then the obtained velocity v is used to
compute the related friction coefficient . In the next iterative cycle, the current friction coefficient is
then used to calculate a new velocity prediction and the same procedure is performed until the
difference between the old and the new velocity becomes negligible. Usually, just few iterative
cycles are more than enough to obtain convergence.
From mentioned above, it can be concluded that the considered hydraulic system can be viewed as a
submerged outlet. Accordingly, to calculate the flow velocity v, the downstream sea level should be
known in advance.

3
3.1

RESULTS AND DISCUSSION

Analysis of hydrological conditions during high water occurrence in September 2010

The area of city of Umag is situated in the north-west of the Istrian peninsula (Figure 1) where due to
the karst geological structure, the underground water circulation is dominant while surface waters in
the natural catchment areas are extremely rare. The only significant and recorded surface watercourse
which seldom flows through the central part of the Buje area (mostly only ten days a year) is the
Umag stream with 28 km2 catchment area. Larger flows are an exception, only as a consequence of
large rainfall, especially if the ground was previously saturated resulting from prior rainfall. In the
lower parts of the catchment area, in Umag hinterland, surface watercourse occurrence is aided by
ground waters which rise above the terrain elevation under extreme conditions. The lowest
downstream section of the Umag stream (cca 1 km length) is regulated and covered and consists of
two parts the lowest downstream pressure section (which was added later in order to widen the
coast) and the upstream covered section which was previously constructed and in earlier times ended
4

by the inlet to the sea. It has been established that the pressure (coast) and the closed (city) canal
sections can absorb a water wave of 21.0 m3s-1 with a protection height of 30.0 cm and a maximum
amount of 25.0 m3s-1 for the full profile (Faculty of Civil Engineering of Rijeka, 2004).
Because of the soil saturation, an extremely large rainfall (September 18th/19th 2010) caused an
extreme surface discharge. According to water traces and the performed hydraulic analysis (by Water
Management Novigrad in 2010) the maximum flow of 35-40 m3s-1 was recorded far from the inlet on
the upper bridge profile on the local road Juricani-Vardica. Besides flooding the valley agricultural
regions in the Umag stream catchment area ahead of its inflow to the urban area of Umag, the outer
waters of the Umag stream and its storm waters also flooded very large area within the urban part of
city of Umag, especially the newly constructed part Komunela. The registered daily rainfall in the city
of Umag had the characteristics of a 50-year return period. However, due to more significant larger
rainfall amount which was registered in the upper catchment areas, the larger intensity and rainfall for
specific hourly periods, the performed estimations of maximum flow capacities based on analyzing the
effective rainfall by the SCS method and analyzing the outflows by exchangeable triangle hydro
charts, it is believed that the recorded high water from September 2010 had all the characteristics of
150 to 200-year return period (Faculty of Civil Engineering of Rijeka, 2011).
Due to large floods, over 60 housing units were flooded in the entire city area. The most endangered
were the city parts Komunela-East, Moela and Sv. Petar. From performed analysis of the most
critically flooded areas in the wider Umag area it can be concluded that the total surface of the flooded
area was approximately around 160 ha (Figure 2) while the total amount of the retained storm water in
the flooded areas was in the order of 250.000 m3.

Figure 2. Overview of flood lines on September 19th 2010.

Legend: 1- Flood lines in the city of Umag, 2- main flow of the Umag stream, 3 - southern arm of the
Umag stream.
5

This is the result of the morphological characteristics of Umag area which comprise a sequence of
very prominent natural depressions preventing or aggravating the gravitaty based evacuation of the
storm and outer flood waters (Figure 3).

Figure 3. Photograph of the considered close channel section.

The Commission for Natural Disaster Damage Assessment of City of Umag established through field
inspection of the endangered areas in 2010 that the damages of peoples properties, assets of economic
agents, assets of City of Umag, agricultural areas, state and county roads and maritime property
amount to about 7 million of Euro.
3.2

Hydraulic analysis of capacity change in the lowest section of the Umag stream in relation
to the sea level

The sea level represents one of the key hydraulic boundary conditions when estimating the
watercourse bed capacity at its inlet into the sea. From the present design level of assessing the sea
backwater influence on the watercourse bed capacity, the main problem is the coincidence of the high
water occurrence in the canal and in the sea. In not so distant future, within the lifetime of current
infrastructure, the influence of the sea backwater could be even more prominent if the estimates about
the global sea level rise come true. This issue has not been taken into consideration but the illustrated
example presents possible consequences of reducing the watercourse bed capacity.
In Umag area there are no marigraph stations to provide data for the assessment of the characteristic
level. Therefore, one of the analyses was made based on the data from 1955 to 2008 period, which
were collected from the closest marigraph stations Rovinj station, south of Umag and the Kopar
marigraph station north of Umag.
In order to examine the influence of the high water occurrence on the performance of a typical costal
rainfall drainage systems, a basic hydraulic analysis was performed for a close channel section with a
downstream bed level below the level of the sea. For this purpose and as to determine some practical
implications of the high water occurrence, the hydraulic analysis was performed for the existing
drainage channel located in the city of Umag in Croatia (Figure 3). Along its total length of 98 m, the
channel has a constant bed slope I0 and a cross section geometry (U-cross section). The channel is
made of reinforced concrete for which it is assumed that the absolute roughness is about 3 mm. The
width B of the U-cross section is 3.7 m and the height H is 1.8 m, which results in the flow area A of
6.66 m2.
6

The upstream bed level is 0.2 m above the sea level. On the other hand, the downstream bed level is
below the sea level to the tune of 0.9 m (Faculty of Civil Engineering in Rijeka, 2004). This vertical
coordinate corresponds to the constant bed slope of 1.2 %. However, if it is assumed that the incoming
flood wave level is above the upstream cover plate level, the magnitude of the bed slope becomes
irrelevant from the hydraulic point of view. Under these circumstances, the considered channel section
behaves like a pipe conduit in which the flow is induced by the pressure gradient and not by the
gradient of potential energy.
From all of the above, it can be concluded that the considered hydraulic system can be viewed as a
submerged outlet. Accordingly, in order to calculate the flow velocity v, the downstream sea level
should be known in advance. For this purpose and in order to perform a parametric analysis of the sea
level influence on the discharge capacity Q, Figure 4 shows the adopted predicted sea level elevation
in time. According to the performed analysis the characteristic maximum annual sea levels range from
1.06 m above sea level (asl) (for a 1.25-year return period) to cca 1.5 m asl (for a 100-year return
period). It must also be mentioned that during the recorded flood in September 2010 the maximum
daily sea level in Umag area was significantly lower about 0.55 m asl.
a

sea level [m]

1.8

interpolated values
predicted sea levels

1.6
1.4
1.2
1
1

10

100

110

return period [year]

Figure 4. The probability of occurrence sea level elevation for Umag

For the considered channel section it is assumed that the absolute roughness is 3 mm, the local
pressure head loss coefficients in and out equal 0.35 and 0.25 respectively. It must also be noted that
the performed hydraulic analysis presumes no difference between the upstream and the downstream
water density. However, it is obvious that this assumption is not valid and is introduced for the
purpose of simplification. Moreover due to the assumed steady flow condition, this analysis should
primarily be viewed as a qualitative and not a quantitative one.
For the specified geometry, boundary conditions and assumptions, the hydraulic analysis defines the
functional relationship between the flow velocity v, and consequently the outlet discharge Q and the
difference in upstream and downstream water level (Figure 5). Moreover, to emphasize the
diminishing of the flow capacity with the sea level elevation, the channel storage-outflow relationship
in presented in Figure 6.

28

3.5

26

24

2.5

22

20

1.5

18

1
0.5

1.8

1.2
0.9
0.6
0.3

outlet velocity 16
outlet discharge

0.3 0.4 0.5 0.6 0.7 0.8 0.9

1.5

sea level [m]

30

outlet discharge [m^3/s]

outlet velocity [m/s]

4.5

14
1.1 1.2 1.3

sea level vs . discharge

level difference vs . discharge

14

16

difference in water level [m]

18

20

22

24

26

28

30

discharge [m^3/s]

Figure 5. Velocity vs. level difference.

Figure 6. Storage-outflow relationship.

It is useful to show the influence of a local pressure head loss coefficient in on the nature and the
relative position of the storage-outflow relationship. For this purpose, the examined range of the
parameter in is set from 0 to 5, with step intervals of 0.25. The relatively high intervals should not be
surprising because the inflow conditions for flood wave are far away from the assumed steady flow
condition. Namely, the flood wave inflow for a non optimised geometry is characterized with an
elevated pressure head loss (U.S. Department of Transportation, 2001). This should be experimentally
investigated, as is also suggested as a result of presented analysis. Namely, for the closed channel
considered (Figure 3) and the range of in between 0 and 5, the analysis shows that the increasing of in
can dramatically influence the storage-outflow relationship (Figure 7). Such a dependence is not a
surprise, however from the practical point of view, it is worth noting that the value of in (usually not
known correctly in advance) can significantly influence the flow discharge capacity.

=5.0 4.5 4.0 3.5 3.0 2.5

2.0

1.5

1.0

0.5
=0.0

Figure 7. Storage-outflow relationship as a function of in .

The reason for examining such a large range of in comes from the fact that the actual value is
unknown. It is also important to point out that the increase in in is associated in a nonlinear fashion
with the degradation of flow capacity. Indeed, at very low values in (between 0.5 and 1.0) the change
in the storage-outflow relationship is more than evident and this is exactly the range of in where a

practicing engineer commonly choses its value. All the above mentioned suggests that this issue
should be further examined experimentally.
In practical terms, the results of the hydrological estimation of the maximum flow capacity at the point
of entering the flow (the closed section included, Faculty of Civil Engineering in Rijeka, 2011) are
best presented through summary of the performed analyses (Table 1). It shows that the sea level rise
significantly reduces the peak flow return period which can be evacuated through the Umag stream
bed and significantly rises the risk of flooding in the Umag urban area.
Table 1. Relation of the calculated sea levels and the corresponding flow capacities with their
recurrent periods.
Sea level [m a.s.l.]
Bed flow capacity [m3s-1]
Recurrence period [yrs]
1.00

26.71

41

1.10

25.34

35

1.20

23.89

30

1.30

22.34

25

1.40

20.69

20

1.50

18.88

16

1.60

16.89

12

1.70

14.63

Besides the analyzed influence of the sea level rise on the reduction of the Umag stream bed capacity
ahead of its inflow into the sea and the corresponding occurrence of the high water rise in the drainage
area, the sea level rise could have an additional negative impact on the rise of the ground water levels
in depressions in the Umag hinterland. During the recorded flood from September 2010 due to high
ground water levels the reduction of surface water infiltration into the karst underground was
observed.

CONCLUSION

Occurrence of the high water in watercourses whose flows end on coastal locations is dependent on
complex climate, hydrological and marigraph relations, terrain topology and the watercourse bed
geometry itself. The analyzed example of the flood in Umag in September 2010 has shown main
characteristics of that flood. The example also pointed to an increased risk of flooding under the
conditions which could become realistic if the predictions of the expected sea level rise caused by the
global climate changes/variations come true.
The performed hydrological and hydraulic analysis has shown that the existing level of protection,
comprising the initial regulation of the lower section of the Umag stream (designed for a 20-year
recurrence period) and including later interventions into the bed reconstruction in this section, is
insufficient for the developed urbanisation. The present state of construction in local depressions has
no possibility of gravitaty driven drainage of excess storm waters.

REFERENCES

Book reference
upi, S., Domijan, N., Mihanovi, H., Mlinar, M., Leder, N., Greti, Z. (2011): Climate Changes,
Sea Level Rise on the Croatian Coast of the Adriatic, Collection of Papers 5. HKV, Croatian
Waters Facing Climate Changes, Croatian Waters, pp. 593-600.
FHWA (1985): Hydraulic Design of Highway Culverts, Hydraulic Design Series No. 5.
Faculty of Civil Engineering of Rijeka (2004): Analysis of Situation and Options for Protecting Umag
Stream Urban Area from High Water Occurrence Hydrological Expertise (task bearer Oani,
N.), Rijeka.
Faculty of Civil Engineering of Rijeka (2010): High Water Occurrence Assessment for Buje Region in
September 2010 Hydrological Expertise (task bearer Rubini, J.), Rijeka.
Faculty of Civil Engineering of Rijeka (2011): Engineering Analysis of Short-term Heavy Rainfall in
Umag Area Hydrological Expertise (task bearer Rubini, J.), Rijeka, unpublished.
Jovanovi, S. (1974): Parameter Hydrology. Lectures held at a Seminar on Hydrological Data
Processing, Izola February 23rd 28th 1975. Yugoslav Society of Hydrology, Belgrade, pp. 1213.
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Croatia according to United Nations Frame Conference on Climate Changes (UNFCCC),
Zagreb, Official Gazette 24/2010.
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rainfall, Proceedings of Scientific meeting Andrija Mohorovii, 140th anniversary of the birth,
(Editor Alica Baji), Zagreb, Meteorological and Hydrological Service, pp. 417-425
Plako-Vrnak, D., Mazzocco-Drvar, D., Tudor, M., Staneid, A., Ivatek-ahdan, S. (2011): Flashflood in Pula, in the North Adriatic in the night of 24 to 25 September 2010, Geophysical
Challenges of the 21st Century, Department of Geophysics, Faculty of Science, University of
Zagreb, Zagreb
Tudor, M., Staneid, A., Mazzocco Drvar, D., Plako Vrnak, D., Ivatek-ahdan, S. (2011): Heavy
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Clarke, M., Rendell, H. (2010): Extreme Events and Flooding in the Mediterranean,
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References in languages other than English
Uzelac, T. (2009): Nunost integralnog pristupa planiranju i upravljanju oborinskim vodama na
primjeru grada Pule. (Necessity of the Integrated Approach to Planning and Stormwater
Management with the focus on the Citty of Pula). In Proceedings Modern Methods of Storm
Water Drainage in Urban Coastal Areas, (Editors: Rubini, J., Zmai, B.), HDZV and Faculty
of Civil Engineering of Rijeka, 19-21 March 2009, Rijeka. pp. 142-155.

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