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ISBN 978604821338-1
Z. Y. LI, K. M. LAM
Department of Civil Engineering, University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong,
e-mail: kmlam@hku.hk
ABSTRACT
This paper introduces a simple performance indicator to evaluate the hydrologic benefits of a bioretention system in
reducing stormwater runoff in a specific region. The estimation is made using the stormwater management model
(SWMM) with input from the recent 10-year (2004-2013) rainfall record of Hong Kong at 1-minute intervals. The model
flowrate outputs of stormwater runoff into the bioretention system, including the catchment area being served, and
stormwater overflow from the system are integrated over each year to obtain the yearly total stormwater volumes. The
ratio of stormwater volume retained by bioretention to the inflow volume is used as a single-value indicator to quantify
the retention capacity of the bioretention system. Performance evaluation is made for various values of infiltration rate
of subsoil and area ratio between bioretention cell and drainage catchment. The use of the performance indicator in
bioretention design is demonstrated.
1. INTRODUCTION cell, the volume of runoff retained inside, may leave the
cell by various means including through an underdrain if
As a type of stormwater best management practices,
provided, percolation into subsoil with permeable subsoil
bioretention has the hydrologic potential to reduce both
bottom, evapotranspiration by plants, and other paths.
the peak flow of surface runoff discharging into the
The retained volume could be deemed as the hydrologic
storm drain and the total volume of runoff generated
benefit acquired by implementation of bioretention since
from the same rainfall event. A bioretention cell retains a
it leads to delayed loading on the urban storm drainage if
portion of surface runoff within its depressed soil surface
discharged via underdrain, or replenishes the soil
and therefore provides on-site retention/detention of
moisture beneath the impervious cover.
stormwater (Prince Georges Country, 2007). The
hydrologic performance of bioretention facilities is The hydraulic and hydrologic response of a catchment
affected by a number of design parameters, such as depth integrated with bioretention is commonly investigated
of soil media, infiltration rate of soil media, plant species, using (1) parcel-scale physical models of which the
watershed ratio, ponding volume, and infiltration rate of inflow rate and overflow rate are monitored during local
in-situ soil. Bioretention facilities with deeper soil media rainfall events; or (2) numerical models that estimate the
have been observed to be able to improve the outflow possible response for different design parameters under
volume reduction ratio due to greater water absorption design storm events or under recorded events. The
capacity (Li et al., 2009; Brown and Hunt, 2012). Soil former method could provide intact flow information,
media with great infiltration rate is prone to reduce the but the cost is high in respect of construction, monitoring
probability of occurrence of overflow by quickly drawing activities, and maintenance. Furthermore, only one or
down water ponding on soil surface (He and Davis, 2011; several sets of design parameters can be studied. The
Brown and Hunt, 2012) but is deemed to produce greater latter method relies heavily on numerical modelling and
rate of outflow from bottom of soil media (Kim et al., verification is required before application but, it can
2012). simulate many design situations which would otherwise
be too expensive to be studied by physical models.
The major flow components in a bioretention system
consist of inflow, overflow/bypass, and retained volume. The primary design parameters for a bioretention system
The bioretention system is usually not only comprised of include the retention depth of the bioretention cell, the
the bioretention cell area but also the adjacent impervious area of the bioretention cell as compared to the drainage
catchment surface draining to the bioretention cell. The area of the served catchment, the infiltration rate of the
inflow to the system is the part of precipitation leading to subsoil, provision of underdrains, as well as non-design
surface runoff generation. The inflow could be regarded factors such as the rainfall pattern.
as the runoff generation on the impervious area
The retention depth of a bioretention cell governs the
concerned without the implementation of a bioretention
volume of stormwater that can be temporary stored
cell. The overflow is the water not intercepted by or
inside the cell. The recommended average depth is 150
flowing away from the cell when the retention volume
mm for practical reason; although greater benefit is
has already been filled. It could be regarded as the runoff
expected with greater depth provided (Prince George's
generation with the implementation of a bioretention cell.
County, 1999). The infiltration rate into the subsoil is
Depending on the exact configurations of the bioretention
1
primarily determined by the hydraulic conductivity k of Kong. Among the major flows in a bioretention cell, the
the soil media. The exact infiltration rate is hard to be indicator only takes into account the overflow and inflow
controlled after installed due to ageing, clogging and the because these two parameters are easy to obtain from
effect from underdrains. The hydraulic conductivity of either monitoring on a physical model or numerical
soil media may range from 5 to 80 mm/h. A minimum simulation with SWMM.
value of k = 25 mm/h is recommended for practical
The inflow is taken to be the runoff generated
reason (Prince George's County 2007).
instantaneously by the corresponding precipitation if
The ratio (AR) of the surface area of actual bioretention there were no bioretention cell connected to the
cell over the total catchment area draining to the cell impervious catchment surface. Then the overflow is the
determines the inflow loading on the cell. For instance, a stormwater runoff with bioretention implemented. The
bioretention cell in a system of AR = 10% receives 10 difference between inflow and overflow is achieved by
times effective runoff on its area and its retention depth bioretention and this retention capacity becomes a
and infiltration capacity is shared as 1/10 over the suitable performance indicator for bioretention. In this
drainage area. It is expected that a bioretention system study, the yearly total accumulated volumes of
with a higher AR will yield greater hydrologic benefits. stormwater generated by inflow (without bioretention)
and by overflow (with bioretention) are computed,
In addition to the above three design parameters, the
whereby the yearly total volume of stormwater retained
rainfall pattern has to be taken into consideration when
by bioretention is calculated from the difference. The
evaluating the performance of a bioretention system. The
ratio (RR) of the retained volume over the inflow volume
same design of bioretention may produce desirable
is used as the performance indicator.
benefit in one region, however, may result in less benefit
in more rainy regions, or may be an over-design for the
2.2 Physical Model and Numerical Simulation
same hydraulic goal in less rainy regions. Thus, analysis
or estimation under local rainfall pattern is essential in The physical model in this study was a planter-box
determining the appropriate bioretention design bioretention cell that received runoff generated from a
recommendation in a particular region. The rainfall sheet-steel roof of an adjacent temporary shed (Figure 1).
pattern includes features such as duration, intensity, The details have been described in Li and Lam (2013) and
depth, seasonal pattern, and annual fluctuations. Lam et al. (2014). The surface are of the bioretention cell
itself was 0.9 m 2 while the catchment area of the roof was
Hong Kong is has a subtropical climate with distinct wet
26 m 2. The bioretention cell had a controlled retention
and dry seasons affected by monsoons. The average
depth at 95 mm and the infiltration rate of the soil media
annual rainfall depth, from past 30-year record, is 2,400
used in the cell was about 40 mm/h.
mm but with large annual fluctuations ranging from
<1,500 mm to >3,200 mm. To combat flood risks, Hong The flowrate of stormwater runoff into the bioretention
Kong has developed extensive hardcore stormwater cell from the roof and the overflow rate out of the cell
drainage systems. However, low-impact development were measured with ultrasonic flow meters at 5-s or 10-s
(LID) is not widely implemented in Hong Kong. There intervals during two periods: August 2 September 5,
are potential benefits in a wider use of LID such as 2013 and March 29 April 8, 2014. The volumes of
bioretention but it is necessary to evaluate the global inflow and overflow can be integrated from the flow
performance of bioretention under Hong Kong rates.
conditions.
This paper presents a method to estimate the hydrologic
performance of a bioretention system by using the Storm
Water Management Model (SWMM) with variations in
the ratio of cell area over drainage area and the subsoil
infiltration rate. The estimation is based on yearly total
stormwater retention capacity of the system with Hong
Kong recent 10-year rainfall record as input. The effect of
rainfall variations from the long term mean value is also
discussed. In addition, the paper presents some results
obtained from a physical model of a small bioretention
system.
2. METHODOLOGY
2
3. RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
3
with higher infiltration rate and greater ratio of cell area Figure 4 shows the coefficient of correlation between the
over drainage area. Figure 3(b) shows that for AR yearly values of RR and the annual precipitation depths.
between 1% and 10%, bioretention performance improves If correlation coefficients > 0.7 is chosen as the threshold
significantly from low values of RR when the infiltration for significant relevance, then there are two regions in
rate increases to 20 mm/h. That means that for Figure 4 where the bioretention performance is less likely
applications with AR < 10%, maintaining the infiltration to be affected by fluctuations in annual precipitation. The
rate > 20 mm/h is important to ensure an acceptable first region is at the left edge of the graph with AR < 3%
performance of bioretention in Hong Kong. and the second region is the upper-right part of Figure
4(a). Referring to Figure 3, the performance of
The effect of clogging can also be assessed in Figure 3.
bioretention is either poor (RR < 0.3) or very good (RR <
For example, a bioretention system of AR = 4% and k = 40
0.9) in these two regions.
mm/h is able to retain 50% of annual precipitation. A
degradation of infiltration due to clogging from k = 40 For the designs of bioretention systems with performance
mm/h to 20 mm/h would cause RR to decrease to 40%. expected to be affected by annual precipitation variations,
However, a further small degradation from k = 20 mm/h that is, operation with coefficient of correlation > 0.7 in
to 10 mm/h, would result in the same amount of Figure 4, the change in bioretention performance can be
reduction in RR by 10%. estimated from the correlation analysis. Figure 5 shows
the predicted change in RR due to an annual precipitation
3.3 Effect of Precipitation on Performance being greater than the 10-year mean by 1,000 mm. The
predicted changes are negative, meaning that a greater
Within the 10-year period of 2004 2013, Hong Kong
annual precipitation would result in a smaller retention
experiences significant fluctuations in the annual
ratio for those designs.
precipitation (Table 1). As such, the performance of
bioretention (RR) varies each year from the 10-year For example, a bioretention system of AR = 4%, and k =
average. It is worth studying how the performance is 40 mm/h is expected to operate with a 10-year average
affected by the fluctuation in annual rainfall. retention ratio at RR 0.5 (Figure 3(b)). If the annual
precipitation in a particular year is nearly to the 10-year
average value of 2,400mm, the same performance is
expected. However, in a particular year where the annual
precipitation is greater at 3,400 mm (1,000 mm higher),
the bioretention system would operate with a
substantially impaired performance with RR by 0.07 from
0.5, that is RR = 0.43. Similarly, in a year of lower annual
precipitation at 1,400 mm, the bioretention performance
will be better with RR = 0.5+0.07 = 0.57.
4
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
The research is supported by a Strategic Research
Development Fund of Department of Civil Engineering,
University of Hong Kong.
REFERENCES
Brown R.A. and Hunt W.F. (2012). Improving
bioretention/biofiltration performance with
restorative maintenance. Water Science and
Technology, 65(2), 361-367.
He Z. and Davis A. P. (2011). Process modeling of storm-
water flow in a bioretention cell. Journal of Irrigation
and Drainage Engineering, 137(3), 121-131.
Kim M.H., Sung C.Y., Li M.H. and Chu K.H. (2012).
Bioretention for stormwater quality improvement in
Texas: Removal effectiveness of Escherichia coli.
Separation and Purification Technology, 84, 120-124.
Lam K.M., Li Z.Y. and Cheng C.C.K. (2014).
Performance of bioretention improved with higher
infiltration rate. Int. Conf. Intelligent Systems,
Structures and Facilities: Sustainable Green Intelligent
Buildings, Hong Kong, Jan. 2014, 28-32.
Li H., Sharkey L.J., Hunt W.F. and Davis A.P. (2009).
Mitigation of impervious surface hydrology using
Figure 5. (a) Estimated change of retention ratio RR from 10-year
average resulting from 1000 mm increase in annual precipitation bioretention in North Carolina and Maryland. Journal
from 10-year average; (b) Enlarged view at AR < 10%. of Hydrologic Engineering, 14(4), 407-415.
Li Z.Y. and Lam K.M. (2013). Bioretention with shallow fill
media. Proc. 35th IAHR World Congress, Chengdu,
Sept. 2013, 1-7.
4. CONCLUDING REMARKS Nash J.E. and Sutcliffe J.V. (1970). River flow forecasting
This paper presents a statistical method to evaluate the through conceptual models. Part I A discussion of
retention performance of a bioretention system via principles. Journal of Hydrology, 10(3), 282-290.
SWMM modelling under local rainfall conditions. The Prince Georges County. Department of Environmental
retained stormwater volume is estimated by the Resources, Largo, MD (2007). Bioretention Manual.
difference between the modeled precipitation and the
overflow volume accumulated over a long-time period
such as 1 year. A single parameter of retention ratio,
being yearly total retained stormwater volume over total
runoff volume into the system, is used to quantify
statistically the potential benefit of bioretention on
stormwater runoff reduction.
The performance indicator can be used conveniently to
assess the performance of a bioretention system under
different values of subsoil infiltration rate and area ratio
of bioretention cell to catchment. An example of
application is made to Hong Kong conditions using 10-
year rainfall record during 2004 2013. The main
advantage of using the indicator is that the hydrologic
behavior of a bioretention system with various design
parameters can be referred to easily from the contours of
indicator values. In addition, it is also easy to predict the
change in performance due to fluctuations in annual
precipitation value as well as the effect of clogging.
The costs of this estimation include computation time,
knowledge of SWMM model, availability of precipitation
record, and knowledge of stormwater management.
However, there are restrictions in the estimation such as
the retention ratio being applicable only to the region
around the rainfall record station; omission of effective
runoff reduction due to initial abstraction by urban cover,
interception by plants, and other means; and degradation
of the bioretention cell.