Abstract
The transportation of pollutants from impervious surfaces during runoff events to receiving water bodies is a serious environmental problem. Summer runoff is also heated by impervious surfaces, causing thermal enrichment in receiving water body systems and degradation of coldwater aquatic ecosystems. End-of-pipe stormwater management facilities that are open to the environment can result in further elevated temperatures due to exposure to solar radiation. Receiving water systems that provide coldwater habitat require cool water temperatures to sustain healthy conditions for cold water flora and fauna (e.g., trout, dace). Underground Stormwater Detention Chambers (USDC) are a technology for the detention and treatment of stormwater runoff that can potentially solve the thermal issues associated with sun-exposed detention facilities while still providing an equivalent level of treatment services for stormwater pollutants. A field study of an USDC located in Southern Ontario was undertaken to characterize its treatment performance and effect on water temperature. The results were: the USDC was found to provide similar levels of stormwater treatment as wet detention ponds. On average, outlet maximum temperatures were 5 °C cooler than inlet maximum temperatures, and outlet water temperatures remained within the thermal regime for coldwater fish habitat throughout the evaluation period. There was little to no stratification of temperature, nor dissolved solids, but stratification of dissolved oxygen was observed mid-winter and into the spring.
Highlights
Stormwater management is a key issue in the design of urban infrastructure
25 June 2014, when 28.2 mm of rain fell over a 2.42 h period (Table 2)
Flows from this event were fully captured by the active storage component of the Underground Stormwater Detention Chambers (USDC)
Summary
Sustained increases in urbanization have resulted in large-scale replacement of pervious land by impervious surfaces, which reduces infiltration rates and available surface storage [1]. Due to these changes, a larger proportion of urban precipitation becomes runoff. Stormwater management (SWM) ponds have been the most widely employed management practice in urban drainage for over 40 years [4]. SWM ponds have been widely documented to improve stormwater quality reducing concentrations of suspended sediments [5], metals [5], nutrients [5,6] and bacteria [7]. Ponds are often assumed to provide high removal efficiency for total suspended solids
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