Robust vegetation parameterization for green roofs in the epa stormwater management model (SWMM)

authored by: Ronja Iffland, Kristian Förster, Daniel Westerholt, María Herminia Pesci, Gilbert Lösken
Abstract: In increasingly expanding cities, roofs are still largely unused areas to counteract the neg-ative impacts of urbanization on the water balance and to reduce flooding. To estimate the effect of green roofs as a sustainable low impact development (LID) technique on the building scale, different approaches to predict the runoff are carried out. In hydrological modelling, representing vegetation feedback on evapotranspiration (ET) is still considered challenging. In this research article, the focus is on improving the representation of the coupled soil–vegetation system of green roofs. Relevant data to calibrate and validate model representations were obtained from an existing field campaign comprising several green roof test plots with different characteristics. A coupled model, utilizing both the Penman–Monteith equation to estimate ET and the software EPA stormwater management model (SWMM) to calculate the runoff, was set up. Through the application of an automatic calibration procedure, we demonstrate that this coupled modelling approach (Kling–Gupta efficiency KGE = 0.88) outperforms the standard ET representation in EPA SWMM (KGE = −0.35), whilst providing a consistent and robust parameter set across all green roof configurations. Moreover, through a global sensitivity analysis, the impact of changes in model parameters was quantified in order to aid modelers in simplifying their parameterization of EPA SWMM. Finally, an improved model using the Penman–Monteith equation and various recommendations are presented.
Organisation(s): Institute of Hydrology and Water Resources Management
Institute of Landscape Architecture
Type: Article
Journal: Hydrology
Volume: 8
No. of pages: 25
Publication date: 03.2021
Publication status: Published
Peer reviewed: Yes
ASJC Scopus subject areas: Oceanography, Water Science and Technology, Waste Management and Disposal, Earth-Surface Processes
Sustainable Development Goals: SDG 11 - Sustainable Cities and Communities
Electronic version(s): https://doi.org/10.3390/hydrology8010012 (Access: Open)