Characteristics of stormwater quality in Singapore catchments in 9 different types of land use

Abstract

Stormwater quality is well known for its highly stochastic nature and not necessarily well explained by mechanistic urban build up and wash off models. Therefore, local empirical data (based on land use) are an essential compliment to statistical analyses of global data. This paper reports on a large-scale monitoring of the 12 key water quality parameters of suspended solids, nutrients, and heavy metals for stormwater runoff in urban discharges from nine urban land uses with varying sizes in Singapore. It was found that, in general, the average of the event mean concentrations for total nitrogen, total phosphorus, total organic carbon, total suspended solids (TSS), and phosphate in parkland land use were higher than the other eight studied land uses. Based on Pearson's correlation analysis, significant correlation between pairs of water quality parameters was observed. Particularly, there was significant correlation between TSS and most of the other tested water quality parameters in all land uses. A pollutant data set from this study will assist in developing appropriate stormwater quality models, guide the establishment of stormwater treatment objectives and preliminary designs for Singapore catchments, as well as provide an essential complement to statistical analyses of global data for stormwater characteristics.