Relationship Between Rainfall Duration and Sewer System Performance Measures Within the Context of Uncertainty

Abstract

Urbanization and climate change have resulted in an increase in catchment runoff, often exceeding the designed capacity of sewer systems. The decision to modernize a sewer system should be based on appropriate criteria. In engineering practice, the above is commonly achieved using a hydrodynamic model of the catchment and the simulation of various rainfall events. The article presents a methodology to analyze the effect of rainfall characteristics parametrized with intensity-duration-frequency (IDF) curves in regard to performance measures of sewerage networks (flood volume per unit impervious surface and share of overfilled manholes in the sewerage network) accounting for the model uncertainty determined via the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) method. An urban catchment was modeled with the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM). Analyses showed that the model uncertainty exerts a large impact on certain measures of sewage network operation. Therefore, these measures should be analyzed in similar studies. This is very important at the stage of decision making in regard to the modernization and sustainable development of catchments. It was found that among the model parameters, the Manning roughness coefficient of sewer channels yields a key impact on the specific flood volume, while the area of impervious surfaces yields the greatest impact on the share of overflowed manholes.