Impact of Storm Characteristics on Infiltration Dynamics in Sponge Cities Using SWMM

Abstract

Effective stormwater management in urban areas requires enhancing the permeability of underlying surfaces. However, the impact of storm characteristics on infiltration processes in sponge cities remains insufficiently explored. This study uses the Horton method within the storm water management model to investigate how uniform and Chicago storm parameters affect infiltration rates. Our findings provide valuable insights: (1) Increasing porous pavement area proportionally reduces subarea sizes within subcatchments, and infiltration rates of porous pavements are supply-controlled. (2) Uniform storms result in consistent initial infiltration rates across pervious areas, subcatchments, and the entire catchment. The duration of this stable state decreases with higher return periods. Catchment infiltration volumes exhibit linear growth with greater storm intensities (R-squared = 0.999). (3) Peak infiltration rates and moments for pervious areas, subcatchments, and the overall catchment exhibit correlations with both the return period and the time-to-peak coefficient, with correlation coefficients ranging from −0.9914 to 0.9986 and p-values ranging from 0.0334 to 0.6923. This study quantifies the influence of design storm parameters on infiltration, providing valuable insights for stormwater infrastructure design and urban stormwater control.