Abstract
Protection of surface water quality plays a crucial role for sustainable urban watershed management since the wash-off from impervious contaminated surfaces generates transport phenomena from a range of pollutants (like nutrients, such as total nitrogen (Ntot) and total phosphorus (Ptot)). This leads to the consequent reduction of water quality, and to phenomena, such as eutrophication and the presence of algae blooms. For this reason, a comprehensive understanding of nutrient build-up and wash-off is essential for efficient stormwater treatment design. However, data scarcity could represent one of the main limitations in this context. This manuscript presents a methodological framework able to tackle such limitations by an in-depth investigation of the main factors that influence the build-up and wash-off from impervious surfaces, including rainfall, watershed, and drainage-network characteristics. The outcomes highlight the key role played by the antecedent dry period, among the rainfall characteristics, and the width of the overland flow path, among the catchment/drainage characteristics. It is also confirmed as appropriate to use suspended solids as a surrogate for the investigation of the behavior of other pollutant species. Additionally, the capability of this approach in assessing modeling performance was successfully tested. The results of the present study are expected to contribute valuable knowledge for defining effective management strategies to minimize stream pollution and protect the health of aquatic ecosystems in urban watersheds characterized by data scarcity.
Highlights
Stormwater runoff from urban impervious surfaces is considered one of the most critical non-point source (NPS) pollution since it contains contaminants that deteriorate water quality and represent a detriment to the surrounding ecological environment [1,2,3]
A pre-analysis was conducted to identify proper rainfall characteristics and eliminate correlated parameters to avoid overshadowing of critical relationships between rainfall and water-quality characteristics
The maximum rainfall intensity is correlated to the total rainfall (0.62) and Antecedent Dry Period (ADP) to runoff volume (−0.66) and runoff peak (−0.61)
Summary
Stormwater runoff from urban impervious surfaces is considered one of the most critical non-point source (NPS) pollution since it contains contaminants that deteriorate water quality and represent a detriment to the surrounding ecological environment [1,2,3]. NPS nutrients are difficult to quantify due to their diffuse nature and the fact that many small sources might contribute to the generation of NPS pollutants. Another aspect to take into account is related to the adsorption of loose soil or sediment particles, which is the primary form by which nutrient offsite movement takes place in soil-water or sediment-water continuums. The uncertainty in the evaluation of cleaning processes for urban impervious surfaces, in terms of particle quantity and granulometry, makes the quantification of nutrients in the urban environment even more challenging
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