Geographic Location System for Identifying Urban Road Sections Sensitive to Runoff Accumulation

Abstract

This paper concerns the design of a geographic location system to identify urban road sections susceptible to runoff accumulation through the analysis of the efficiency of surface drainage networks. To this end, a combination of Geographic Information Systems (GISs) and stormwater models was proposed. First, GIS hydrology tools were employed to generate all the information required to characterise urban catchments geometrically. Then, a synthetic storm was created from precipitation data obtained through spatial interpolation for a given return period. Finally, the three main hydrological processes occurring in catchments (precipitation loss, transformation and routing) were simulated using the Hydrologic Modeling System (HEC-HMS). The system was tested through a case study of an urban catchment located in the city of Santander (Spain). The results demonstrate its usefulness in detecting critical points in terms of runoff accumulation, according to the efficiency of the existing surface drainage network.

ArcDrain: A GIS Add-In for Automated Determination of Surface Runoff in Urban Catchments

“…This grid was obtained from 148 weather stations distributed throughout the area, with records between 1950 and 2003. The resulting data were fitted to a list of probability functions to obtain values of annual maximum precipitation, which were then spatially interpolated using ordinary kriging to yield the map depicted in Figure 3e [53]. The unevenly distributed and limited number of stations available in Santander explains the shape of the precipitation map.…”