Estimation of Wastewater Discharges by Means of OpenStreetMap Data

Jannik Schilling,Jens Tränckner

doi:10.3390/w12030628

Abstract

For the optimization of sewer networks and integration of water management in urban planning, estimations of wastewater discharges at a high spatial resolution are a key boundary condition. In many cases, these data are not available or, for reasons of data protection and company secrecy, the data are not accessible for research purposes. Therefore, procedures are needed to determine the volume of wastewater with high spatial resolution, based on freely accessible data. The approach presented here uses mainly OpenStreetMap (OSM) data, combined with a dataset of the German official topographic–cartographic Information System (ATKIS), to estimate the volume of wastewater on a building level. By comparison with daily values of the dry weather inflow at pumping stations and sewage treatment plants, it is shown that the method can generate realistic results, if target inflows exceed 50 m³/d. Difficulties due to the effect of commuting and the individual use of the buildings have to be considered, as well as data-quality issues in the OSM dataset. As an application example, the generated wastewater discharges are spatially joined with land-use plans. The resulting wastewater yield factors serve as input data for decision-support tools in urban water planning or modeling tasks.

Highlights

Sewage networks for the transport of wastewater from industrial, commercial, and residential areas to sewage treatment plants are essential elements of the water infrastructure
Procedures are needed to determine the volume of wastewater with high spatial resolution, based on freely accessible data
Urban and rural areas differ in building types, infrastructure, land use, and population density [36], leading to a large areas differ in building types, infrastructure, land use, and population density

Summary

Introduction

Sewage networks for the transport of wastewater from industrial, commercial, and residential areas to sewage treatment plants are essential elements of the water infrastructure. As the construction and maintenance of wastewater networks are cost-intensive, a large number of research projects are dedicated to the optimization of such infrastructures [1]. Wastewater discharges as a main boundary condition for optimization are often regarded as “given” [1,3] without going into details in terms of data sources. The amount of wastewater is merely estimated, e.g., based on the drinking-water consumption of larger supply areas and provided with a peak factor [2]. Wrong assumptions about the amount of wastewater may lead to an oversized or undersized system [5]

Methods

Results

Conclusion