Developing a stochastic sewer model to support sewer design under water conservation measures

Olivia Bailey, Thomas Arnot, Miriam Blokker, Zoran Kapelan, Jan Vreeburg, Johannes Hofman

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

25 Citations (SciVal)
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Abstract

Population growth and climate change place a strain on water resources; hence, there are growing initiatives to reduce household water use. UKWIR (2016) have a stated aim to halve water abstraction by 2050. This will significantly reduce inflow to sewer systems and increase wastewater concentration. This work presents a new stochastic sewer model that can be used to predict both hydraulic and pollutant loading for various water saving scenarios. The stochastic sewer model is based on integration of the stochastic water demand model SIMDEUM® with the InfoWorks ICM® (Sewer Edition) hydraulic model and software. This model has been developed using foul sewer networks, i.e. where household discharges are the dominant inflow; however, it could also be used in combined sewage systems where rainwater flows would add to the stochastic dry weather flow (DWF). The stochastic sewer model was tested and validated on several real catchments in the Wessex Water area of the UK. Calibration was carried out using metered consumption data. The stochastic sewer model gives an accurate prediction of the diurnal patterns of sewage discharge at a household level and was validated using real flow measurements within the catchment. The results obtained indicate that this model can be used to accurately predict changes in flow due to water conservation. A preliminary study for the impact of low water use on this validated network model has been conducted and it was found that overnight and daytime flow was reduced by up to 80% whereas evening flows remained largely similar. Extended stagnation times were observed in the street scale pipes (150 mm) in the low water use scenario.

Original languageEnglish
Pages (from-to)908-917
Number of pages10
JournalJournal of Hydrology
Volume573
Early online date4 Apr 2019
DOIs
Publication statusPublished - 1 Jun 2019

Funding

This study was conducted as part of the Water Informatics, Science and Engineering (WISE) Centre for Doctoral Training (CDT), funded by the UK Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council , Grant No. EP/L016214/1 . Olivia Bailey is supported by a research studentship from this CDT. The authors acknowledge Wessex Water for providing the sewerage data utilised in this work.

Keywords

  • Household discharge
  • Reduced water consumption
  • Sewer design
  • Stochastic sewer modelling
  • Wastewater quality
  • Water conservation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Water Science and Technology

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