Sensitivity of hydrodynamic parameters in the simulation of water transfer processes in a permeable pavement

Abstract

The high urbanization process has caused profound changes in the components of the hydrological cycle, causing various problems such as flooding, rainwater degradation, among others. Low Impact Development (LID) techniques have proven to be a viable and effective alternative to stormwater management, reducing runoff, and increasing the infiltration and evapotranspiration capacity of urban areas. The operation prediction of a compensatory technique, such as permeable pavement, depends on the hydrodynamic properties of the permeable pavement layers and the subsoil properties. The numerical solutions based on the solution of Richards’ equation have been the most used to estimate water transfer processes. The objective of this work was to investigate the influence of hydrodynamic parameters on the hydraulic behavior of a permeable pavement installed in Recife-PE. The effect of 5 hydrodynamical parameters was analyzed for a highly heterogeneous permeable pavement. The Hydrus 1-D model was used to simulate water transfer processes on the permeable pavement. Initially, a sensitivity analysis of the mesh refinement degree was performed to simulate the transfer processes in the permeable pavement. The response surface method was applied to the hydrodynamic parameters to perform the sensitivity analysis. The calculations were carried out for hourly and daily time scales. As a result, it was observed that the spatial discretization had no influence on the scenarios of the flow variable. The use of a daily time resolution reduced the influence of events with higher precipitation intensity, underestimating the generation of runoff. The surface runoff showed higher sensitivity to the parameters of the superficial layer, especially to the saturated hydraulic conductivity. The cumulative infiltration and groundwater recharge showed low sensitivity when the hydrodynamic parameters of the retention curve and the saturated hydraulic conductivity varied. The volume of water stored in the profile showed higher sensitivity to the ‘θs’ and ‘n’ parameter of the subbase layer. The use of meteorological input data with different temporal resolutions for the simulation of the water transfer processes in the permeable pavement section demonstrated that the hydrodynamic parameters have a higher influence than the climatic variables in the daily resolution. The use of meteorological data with hourly temporal resolution demonstrated that runoff was hypothetically controlled by meteorological variables. The mesh and parameter sensitivity analysis can influence researches that seek to understand water transfer processes in a structure as a permeable pavement through the Richards’ equation, generating a lower operating cost and speeding up simulations.

Effect of the choice of different methods on the permeable pavement hydraulic characterization and hydrological classification

“…These may consist of construction works, structures, and devices that facilitate the infiltration and percolation of water in the soil, restricting the runoff water infiltration into the drainage network, or that temporarily store runoff water. Among the most commonly known compensatory techniques used in Brazil, we find the infiltration systems, the infiltration wells and trenches, the detention basins, the green roofs, and the permeable pavements (Canholi, 2015;Costa et al, 2020;Marinho et al, 2020).…”

“…The estimation of saturated hydraulic conductivity in permeable pavements is of fundamental importance for understanding the processes of generating runoff and the dynamics of infiltration in natural rain conditions. In general regarding water infiltration and runoff generation, conductivity is one of the most sensitive parameters (Costa et al, 2020).…”

Sensitivity analysis of permeable pavement hydrological modelling in the Storm Water Management Model

“…Various SA have recently been carried out on PPs based on HYDRUS model (Costa et al, 2020;Brunetti et al, 2018;Turco et al, 2017;Brunetti et al, 2016), but the analysed parameters or inputs differ from those used in SWMM. Also, several SA have been carried out previously in SWMM, a detailed list can be found in Niazi et al (2017), but few have carried out such an analysis focusing just on LID controls and its parameters (Panos et al, 2020;Xu et al, 2019;Leimgruber et al, 2018;Peng and Stovin, 2017;Krebs et al, 2016), and most of them did it as a previous step before calibrating a certain model.…”

Modelling the Hydraulic Response of Permeable Pavements: a Numerical and Experimental Approach for Model Comparison and Sensitivity Analysis to Design Parameters

“…Various SA have recently been carried out on PPs based on HYDRUS model (Costa et al 2020;Brunetti et al 2018;Turco et al 2017;Brunetti, Šimůnek, and Piro 2016), but the analysed parameters or inputs differ from those used in SWMM. Also, several SA have been carried out previously in SWMM, a detailed list can be found in Niazi et al (2017), but few have carried out such an analysis focusing just on LID controls and its parameters (Panos, Wolfand, and Hogue 2020;Xu et al 2019b;Leimgruber et al 2018;Peng and Stovin 2017;Krebs et al 2016), and most of them did it as a previous step before calibrating a certain model.…”