Tom Wambecq

Combined sewage overflows (CSOs) are a common consequence of heavy rainfall events and can have significant implications for water quality in receiving waterbodies. With climate change, these events are becoming more frequent and intense, placing greater pressure on aquatic ecosystems. To prevent water pollution, it is essential to utilize numerical tools to investigate, forecast, and establish control measures for CSOs. Typically, these tools involve a dynamic model for flow simulation combined with either a detailed model for pollutants or a simplified event mean concentration (EMC) calculation. However, both approaches have drawbacks: a detailed model requires extensive calibration time, while the EMC does not account for system dynamics. To overcome these issues, a novel system was developed that integrates the dynamic nature of the detailed model with the rapid calibration of the EMC. This model employs two distinct concepts for pollution modeling: one for soluble compounds and one for suspended solids. The resulting model was evaluated at multiple locations with varying hydraulic dynamics, demonstrating its potential utility at any location where a dynamic model of the sewer system is available.

Stormwater runoff is often discharged untreated into receiving waters, a process that is widely recognized as a threat to water quality. To protect water bodies, tools are needed to assess the risk of urban runoff pollution. In this work, a new tool is presented that can be used to model the concentration of the most frequent pollutants in urban runoff, i.e., Zn, Cu, Pb, PAH(1)6, TN, and TP, based not only on the surface type but also on other inputs such as the amount of traffic or the building type. The tool also includes a simple model to evaluate the impact of different SUDS types. The water quality model was evaluated by measurement campaigns in separate sewer systems of a few small catchments in Flanders. The model was able to reproduce the observed time-dependent spread in concentrations in a satisfactory manner. Furthermore, the model also allowed for the attribution of differences in heavy metal concentrations in catchments very similar to the building types. These are clear improvements compared to previous model approaches.