Examining How a Smart Rainwater Harvesting System Connected to a Green Roof Can Improve Urban Stormwater Management

Abstract

This study quantified how a smart rainwater harvesting cistern that collected stormwater runoff from a green roof reduced stormwater flow into a combined sewer system (CSS) during wet-weather flow. The studied smart rainwater harvesting cistern collected runoff from a green roof located in Bronx, New York City; it used the Continuous Monitoring and Adaptive Control (CMAC) smart sensor provided by OptiRTC, Inc., to regulate the water flow from the cistern. The cistern collected stormwater runoff from the roof, usually draining completely after 24 h of dry weather. However, the smart sensor used weather forecasting data, and if additional rainfall was predicted immediately following another storm, the cistern only drained a specific amount, calibrated to mitigate the CSO. Five years of data from the cistern system were used to understand the role of the cistern’s smart sensor in reducing stormwater flow into the CSS during storms. The study results demonstrate that connecting the smart cistern system to the green-roof maximized stormwater collection (compared with the green roof alone) for storm sizes between 2 mm and 25 mm and for antecedent dry-weather periods greater than 2 days. The total of 65.2% of rainfall retained over the monitoring period by the green roof alone increased to 75.6% when considering the total stormwater retained and detained together by the green roof and cistern, thus yielding a 10% improvement. The study results also demonstrate that the smart sensor’s use of weather forecasting data failed to improve system performance.