Ecohydraulic-driven real-time control of stormwater basins

Control of stormwater basins can be a competitive measure to improve the ecohydraulics of urban rivers by increasing the removal efficiency of particles and agglomerated contaminants like heavy metals and by decreasing hydraulic peak flows. In this paper, we present a simulation study that evaluates the potential of ecohydraulic-driven real-time control of stormwater basins to improve water quality and decrease hydraulic stress in the receiving water body. Nine different static and dynamic control scenarios were analysed based on a detailed hydraulic and quality model of an existing small urban catchment equipped with a stormwater basin at its outlet. Under dynamic control, an outlet valve was manipulated to increase retention time. The removal efficiency for suspended solids could be significantly increased by all control strategies and the hydraulic peaks were reduced by at least 50%. At the same time, overflow of the basin is avoided to prevent flooding. The developed dynamic control strategies proved to be advantageous as they provide significantly higher removal efficiency for suspended solids and a possible flexible adaptation to future demands. The findings of this study have been confirmed by field experiments.