TY - JOUR
T1 - Rain Garden Performance as a Function of Native Soil Parameters
AU - Bethke, Gabrielle M.
AU - William, Reshmina
AU - Stillwell, Ashlynn S.
N1 - Funding Information:
This work was sponsored by the Research Experience for Undergraduates program in Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. R. W. was supported by the P. E. O. Scholars Fellowship, and the Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE) Distinguished Fellowship and the Mavis Future Faculty Fellowship from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign as a Ph.D. student. Additional support was provided under the provisions of Section 104 of the Water Resources Research Act annual base grants (104b) program, made possible and distributed through the Illinois Water Resources Center and United States Geological Survey, and the Illinois-Indiana Sea Grant College Program (Grant No. NA18OAR4170082; investigator team: Principal Investigator (PI) Mary Pat McGuire, and co-PIs David Grimley, Andrew Phillips, Margaret Schneemann, and Ashlynn Stillwell). Author contributions are as follows: G. M. Bethke performed the regression analysis and analyzed the results; R. William created the SWMM model and the fragility curves; G. M. Bethke, R. William, and A. S. Stillwell designed the research and wrote the manuscript; and A. S. Stillwell supervised the research.
Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 American Society of Civil Engineers.
PY - 2022/2/1
Y1 - 2022/2/1
N2 - Green infrastructure has been widely studied as a means of runoff reduction in urban areas, but the performance of such infrastructure installations is dependent on local environmental conditions. Rain gardens in particular are affected not only by precipitation but also by the native soil within which a garden is situated. In this study, we quantified the likelihood that a rain garden would overflow under different storm conditions based on installation in various native soils. Using the US Environmental Protection Agency's Storm Water Management Model (EPA-SWMM) (v. 5.1), we simulated different environmental conditions; the output overflow results were used to create linear regressions of overflow quantity as a function of soil parameters. These empirical relationships give insight into which parameters are most significant for runoff reduction under different conditions. In particular, planting media thickness and soil porosity in a rain garden were significant indicators of overflow in native soils with lower seepage rates. We used results from the regressions to create fragility curves using the Finite-Element Reliability Using Matlab (FERUM) software tool to create a visual representation of the probability of failure for a rain garden with increasing precipitation intensity when installed in different native soil types. This study helps describe the spatial variability of rain garden performance, and insights from this study can be used to inform planners of the feasibility of implementing a rain garden in terms of the local soils and typical precipitation conditions.
AB - Green infrastructure has been widely studied as a means of runoff reduction in urban areas, but the performance of such infrastructure installations is dependent on local environmental conditions. Rain gardens in particular are affected not only by precipitation but also by the native soil within which a garden is situated. In this study, we quantified the likelihood that a rain garden would overflow under different storm conditions based on installation in various native soils. Using the US Environmental Protection Agency's Storm Water Management Model (EPA-SWMM) (v. 5.1), we simulated different environmental conditions; the output overflow results were used to create linear regressions of overflow quantity as a function of soil parameters. These empirical relationships give insight into which parameters are most significant for runoff reduction under different conditions. In particular, planting media thickness and soil porosity in a rain garden were significant indicators of overflow in native soils with lower seepage rates. We used results from the regressions to create fragility curves using the Finite-Element Reliability Using Matlab (FERUM) software tool to create a visual representation of the probability of failure for a rain garden with increasing precipitation intensity when installed in different native soil types. This study helps describe the spatial variability of rain garden performance, and insights from this study can be used to inform planners of the feasibility of implementing a rain garden in terms of the local soils and typical precipitation conditions.
KW - Fragility curves
KW - Green stormwater infrastructure
KW - Rain garden
KW - Reliability
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U2 - 10.1061/JSWBAY.0000967
DO - 10.1061/JSWBAY.0000967
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85116901344
SN - 2379-6111
VL - 8
JO - Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment
JF - Journal of Sustainable Water in the Built Environment
IS - 1
M1 - 04021021
ER -