Reliability analysis of sustainable storm water drainage systems

Abstract

The water balance of developed land is associated with reduced infiltration and large surface runoff leading to shorter concentration times, greater peak discharge, large total volume of runoff and minimum amount of water that infiltrates into the soil. Efforts to mitigate the negative impact of urbanization and manage storm water drainage in a more sustainable way could be achieved by increasing the storage capacity of the drainage system or by increasing the infiltration capacity of the urban catchment. Climate, the soil properties, the catchment characteristics and the storage capacity of the drainage system determine the effectiveness of the storm water controls that are constructed to retain or infiltrate part of the runoff volume. A probabilistic model for the estimate of the reliability of sustainable drainage and reuse system in a Mediterranean type climate is proposed for evaluating the reliability of the combined sustainable drainage and irrigation system. © 2014 WIT Press.