Low impact development technologies for mitigating climate change:Summary and prospects

Many cities are adopting low impact development(LID)technologies(a type of nature-based solution)to sustainably manage urban stormwater in future climates.LIDs,such as bioretention cells,green roofs,and permeable pavements,are developed and applied at small-scales in urban and peri-urban settings.There is an interest in the large-scale implementation of these technologies,and therefore assessing their performance in future climates,or conversely,their potential for mitigating the impacts of climate change,can be valuable evidence in support of stormwater management planning.This paper provides a literature review of the studies conducted that examine LID function in future climates.The review found that most studies focus on LID performance at over 5 km2scales,which is quite a bit larger than traditional LID sizes.Most paper used statistical downscaling methods to simulate precipitation at the scale of the modelled LID.The computer model used to model LIDs was predominantly SWMM or some hybrid version of SWMM.The literature contains examples of both vegetated and unvegetated LIDs being assessed and numerous studies show mitigation of peak flows and total volumes to high levels in even the most extreme climates(characterized by increasing rainfall intensity,higher temperatures,and greater number of dry days in the inter-event period).However,all the studies recognized the uncertainty in the projections with greatest uncertainty in the LID’s ability to mitigate storm water quality.Interestingly,many of the studies did not recognize the impact of applying a model intended for small-scale processes at a much larger scale for which it is not intended.To explore the ramifications of scale when modelling LIDs in future climates,this paper provides a simple case study of a large catchment on Vancouver Island in British Columbia,Canada,using the Shannon Diversity Index.PCSWMM is used in conjunction with providing regional climates for impacts studies(PRECIS)regional climate model data to determine the relationship between catchment hydrology(with and without LIDs)and the information loss due to PCSWMM’s representation of spatial heterogeneity.The model is applied to five nested catchments ranging from 3 to 51 km2and with an RCP4.5 future climate to generate peak flows and total volumes in 2022,and for the period of 2020–2029.The case study demonstrates that the science behind the LID model within PC stormwater management model(PCSWMM)is too simple to capture appropriate levels of heterogeneity needed at larger-scale implementations.The model actually manufactures artificial levels of diversity due to its landuse representation,which is constant for every scale.The modelling exercise demonstrated that a simple linear expression for projected precipitation vs.catchment area would provide comparable estimates to PCSWMM.The study found that due to the spatial representation in PCSWMM for landuse,soil data and slope,slope(an important factor in determining peak flowrates)had the highest level of information loss followed by soil type and then landuse.As the research scale increased,the normalized information loss index(NILI)value for landuse exhibited the greatest information loss as the catchments scaled up.The NILI values before and after LID implementation in the model showed an inverse trend with the predicted LID mitigating performance.

Measuring performance of low impact development practices for the surface runoff management

Continuous urbanization over the last few years has led to the increase in impervious surfaces and stormwater runoff.Low Impact Development(LID)is currently receiving increased attention as a promising strategy for surface runoff management.To analyze the performance of LID practices for surface runoff management,a longterm hydrological modeling from 2001 to 2015 along with a cost-effectiveness analysis were carried out on a campus in Dresden,Germany.Seven LID practices and six precipitation scenarios were designed and simulated in a Storm Water Management Model(SWMM).A cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted by calculating the lifecycle costs and runoff removal rate of LID practices.Results demonstrated that the LID practices significantly contributed to surface runoff mitigation in the study area.The LID performance was primarily affected by the length of the precipitation scenarios and LID implementing schemes.The runoff removal rate of the LID practices fluctuated significantly when the rainfall scenario was shorter than 12 months.When the rainfall scenario exceeded 1 year the effects on the runoff removal rate was constant.The combination of an infiltration trench,permeable pavement,and rain barrel(IT+PP+RB),was the best runoff control capacity with a removal rate ranging from 23.2% to 27.4%.Whereas,the rain barrel was the most cost-effective LID option with a costeffectiveness(C/E)ratio ranged from 0.34 to 0.41.The modeling method was improved in this study by conducting long-term hydrological simulations with different durations rather than short-term simulations with single storms.In general,the methods and results of this study provided additional improvements and guidance for decision-making process regarding the implementation of appropriate LID practices.

Quantitative analysis of impact of green stormwater infrastructures on combined sewer overflow control and urban flooding control

Stimulated by the recent USEPA＇s green stormwater infrastructure （GSI） guidance and policies, GS1 systems have been widely implemented in the municipal area to control the combined sewer overflows （CSOs）, also known as low impact development （LID） approaches. To quantitatively evaluate the performance of GSI systems on CSO and urban flooding control, USEPA-Stormwater Management Model （SWMM） model was adopted in this study to simulate the behaviors of GSI systems in a well- developed urban drainage area, PSW45, under different circumstances. The impact of different percentages of stormwater runoff transported from impervious surfaces to the GSI systems on CSO and urban flooding control has also been investigated. Results show that with current buildup, GSI systems in PSW45 have the best performance for low intensity and short duration events on both volume and peak flow reductions, and have the worst pertbrmance tor high intensity and long durataon events. Since the low intensity and short duration events are dominant from a long-term perspective, utilizing GSI systems is considered as an effective measure of CSO control to meet the long-term controlstrategy for PSW45 watershed. However, GSI systems are not suitable for the flooding control purpose in PSW45 due to the high occurrence possibility of urban flooding during or after high intensity events where GSI systems have relatively poor performance no matter for a short or long duration event,

Determination of urban runoff coefficient using time series inverse modeling

Runoff coefficient is an important parameter for the decision support of urban stormwater management. However, factors like comprehensive land-use type, variable spatial elevation, dynamic rainfall and groundwater elevation, make the direct estimation of runoff coefficient difficult. This paper presented a novel method to estimate the urban runoff coefficient using the inverse method, where observed time-series catchment outfall flow volume was employed as input for the water balance model and runoff coefficients of different catchments were treated as unknown parameters. A developed constrained minimization objective function was combined to solve the model and minimized error between observed and modeled outfall flow is satisfactory for the presenting of a set of runoff coefficients. Estimated runoff coefficients for the urban catchments in Shanghai downtown area demonstrated that practice of low impact design could play an important role in reducing the urban runoff.