Modeling Infiltration Wells in SWMM and Comparing Its Performance with a Real-Scale Well

Abstract

The low impact development (LID) controls are increasingly encouraged to control the urbanization drainage impacts. A particularly interesting LID control for densely urbanized areas is an infiltration well (IW), as it occupies a small area and is efficient in recharging groundwater. The Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) is a hydraulic-hydrological modeling software program for urban areas that has been widely used and accepted. Its most recent versions already allow the modeling of some LID controls. However, despite their importance, IWs have not been studied yet. In this context, the goal of this article is to present a way to model the IW in SWMM using the available tools. For this purpose, infiltration trench (IT) input parameters were used. They were adapted to represent the IW stored volume and outflow. The water levels (WLs) calculated by the proposed model were compared to the WLs from a real-scale IW in the city of Sao Carlos, Brazil. The WLs were measured in the field by six controlled tests. The results showed a good fit between the WLs obtained by SWMM and the monitoring data, with an R2 between 0.96 and 0.97 and a Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (NS) between 0.79 and 0.84. These results validate the procedures adopted, which allows the IW modeling in the current version of SWMM.