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Rainfall Runoff and Dissolved Pollutant Transport Processes Over Idealized Urban Catchments

Accepted version
Peer-reviewed

Type

Article

Change log

Authors

Zhang, T 
Xiao, Y 
Liang, D 
Tang, H 
Yuan, S 

Abstract

Urban stormwater runoff is often considered as one of the most significant contributors to water pollution. Particulates are commonly regarded as the primary form of pollutant transport in the urban environment, but the contribution from the dissolved pollutants can also be significant. This study aims to investigate the dissolved pollutant transport process over urban catchments, especially the effects of buildings and spatial distribution of pollutants. The concept of “exchange layer” has been adopted and an equation has been proposed to describe the release process of dissolved pollutant from the exchange layer to the runoff water. A horizontal two-dimensional water flow and pollutant transport model has been developed for predicting dissolved pollutant runoff based on the shallow water assumptions and the advection-diffusion equation. A series of laboratory experiments have been conducted to verify the proposed model. It has been demonstrated that both the rainfall runoff and the pollutant runoff can be predicted accurately. Buildings slow down the runoff and pollutant transport processes, especially when buildings are staggered. The non-uniform distribution of pollutants over the catchment greatly influences the pollutant transport process over the catchment. This work provides insight into the effects of buildings and initial pollutant distribution on the dissolved pollutant transport phenomenon, which can help better design the pollution mitigation strategies.

Description

Keywords

dissolved pollutant, stormwater, rainfall-runoff, pollutant transport, diffused pollution, urban

Journal Title

Frontiers in Earth Science

Conference Name

Journal ISSN

2296-6463
2296-6463

Volume Title

8

Publisher

Frontiers Media SA

Rights

All rights reserved
Sponsorship
Royal Academy of Engineering (RAEng) (via Hohai University) (Unknown)
This work was financially supported by the National Key Research and Development Program of China (Grant No. 2016YFC0402605), the Fundamental Research Funds for the Central Universities (Grant No. 2018B42714), the 111 Project (Grant No. B17015) and the Royal Academy of Engineering UK-China Urban Flooding Research Impact Program (Grant No. UUFRIP\ 100051).