Land cover based simulation of urban stormwater runoff and pollutant loading

Urban stormwater models such as PCSWMM are important tools for evaluating urban stormwater quantity and quality. However, due to the lack of consideration of land covers, traditional catchment delineation methods have defects in model precision, parameter transferability and assessment of contribution from individual land cover types. This paper used PCSWMM model as a foundation, built a new land-cover based (LCB) model and made a systematic comparison with the traditional watershed delineation tool (WDT) model to study the impacts of land cover on the simulation of stormwater runoff and pollutant loading. The models were applied to two urban catchments in Calgary, Canada. The results revealed that the LCB model performed better than the WDT model in hydrological simulation, and land cover consideration can considerably improve model accuracy. The two models showed comparable performances in simulation of total suspended solids (TSS), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) loading. The LCB model parameters could be regionalized based on land cover types. The hydrologic-hydraulic parameters can be satisfactorily transferred from neighboring gauged catchments to similar ungauged catchments. The transferring of water quality parameters did not perform as satisfactory. The LCB model could quantitively evaluate the contribution to runoff and pollutant loads of different land covers. Roads and roofs were found to be the major contributors to urban runoff and pollutants in the two urban catchments. Green space became important only during large storms events and its contribution could be ignored during dryer years.

Automated summary

This study introduced a new land-cover based (LCB) model in urban stormwater modeling, demonstrating that the consideration of land cover can significantly improve model accuracy, particularly in hydrological simulation. The LCB model outperformed the traditional watershed delineation tool (WDT) model in hydrological simulation, while showing comparable performances in simulation of total suspended solids (TSS), total nitrogen (TN), and total phosphorus (TP) loading.