Comparative study of different LID technologies for drainage and protection of atmospheric stormwater quality in urban areas

Abstract

Frequent floods and deterioration of drained water quality are the main problems in rapidly developing urban zones, mostly because urbanization reduces the areas with natural ground that can absorb stormwater and therefore prevent floods and pollution. In order to have a solution which can solve these problems and which could be acceptable for the nature and people, decentralized drainage systems were developed and applied. The primary goal of decentralized systems is to improve infiltration, evapotranspiration, and reuse of stormwater. This study presents the analysis of three variant solutions for the management of atmospheric stormwater. Analyzed solutions are based on the classical sewage system and on low impact development (LID) techniques applied in urban areas (Kucevo, Serbia). The main aim of this analysis was to define the pilot procedure to reduce pollutants and quantity of drained atmospheric water and using stormwater management, because the Pek River is one of the Danube tributaries. After the analysis of all solutions, the third variant solution based only on the LID techniques (vegetative swales, infiltration trenches, rain barrels, and bio-retention cells) gave the best results. According to simulation results, the proposed techniques in the third solution totally remove all pollutants from stormwater and stormwater surplus.