Journal of Hydrology 299 (2004) 300311 www.elsevier.

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Analysis and modeling of ooding in urban drainage systems

Theo G. Schmitta,*, Martin Thomasa, Norman Ettrichb
b

FG Siedlungswasserwirtschaft, Kaiserslautern Technical University, Postfach 3049, D-67653 Kaiserslautern, Germany Fraunhofer Institut fur Techno- und Wirtschaftsmathematik ITWM, Gottlieb-Daimler-Strae 49, D-67663 Kaiserslautern, Germany

Abstract The European research project in the EUREKA framework, RisUrSim (S!2255) is presented. The project consortium includes industrial mathematics and water engineering research institutes, municipal drainage works as well as an insurance company. The overall objective has been the development of an integrated planning and management tool to allow cost effective management for urban drainage systems. The paper outlines the regulatory background of European Standard EN 752 dening ood frequency as the one hydraulic performance criterion. The phenomenon of urban ooding caused by surcharged sewer systems in urban drainage systems is analyzed leading to the necessity of dual drainage modeling. A detailed dual drainage simulation model is described based upon hydraulic ow routing procedures for surface ow and pipe ow. Special consideration is given to the interaction between surface and sewer ow in order to most accurately compute water levels above ground as a basis for further assessment of possible damage costs. The model application is presented for small case study in terms of data needs, model verication and rst simulation results. q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
Keywords: Urban drainage; Flooding; Dual drainage modeling; Hydraulic surface ow simulation; Dynamic sewer ow routing

1. Introduction Prevention of ooding in urban areas caused by inadequate sewer systems has become an important issue. With increased property values of buildings and other structures, potential damage from prolonged ooding can easily extend into the millions of dollars. Residents pay service fees and, thus, expect their urban drainage systems to operate effectively without fear of failure due to weather conditions. However, drainage systems designed to cope with the most
* Corresponding author. Fax: C49 631 2053905. E-mail addresses: tschmitt@rhrk.uni-kl.de (T.G. Schmitt), ettrich@itwm.fhg.de (N. Ettrich). 0022-1694/$ - see front matter q 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. doi:10.1016/j.jhydrol.2004.08.012

extreme storm conditions would be too expensive to build and operate. In establishing tolerable ood frequencies, the safety of the residents and the protection of their valuables must be in balance with the technical and economic restrictions. According to European Standard EN 752, approved by the European Committee for Standardization (CEN, 1996, 1997) urban drainage systems should be designed to withstand periods of ooding in the range of 1050 years, depending on the type of urban area and trafc infrastructure served. In the following, the major issues of this standard will be briey discussed in conjunction with an analysis of urban ooding. A simulation model to assess the hydraulic performance of sewer systems and the risk of

T.G. Schmitt et al. / Journal of Hydrology 299 (2004) 300311 Table 1 Recommended design frequencies in EN 752 Design storm frequencya EN 752-2 (1 in n years) 1 in 1 in 1 in 1 in 1 in
a

301

Location Rural areas Residential areas City centers, industrial/commercial areas with ooding check, City centers, industrial/commercial areas without ooding check. Underground railway/underpasses

Design ooding frequency EN 752-2 (1 in n years) 1 in 10 1 in 20 1 in 30 1 in 50

1 2 2 5 10

For design storms no surcharge shall occur.

ooding caused by system surcharge will be described afterwards. Its application and data need is demonstrated in a case study. The European Standard EN 752 External Drain and Sewer Systems applies to drainage systems designed essentially for gravity ow. Hydraulic performance criteria established in EN 752 for urban drainage systems in terms of design storm frequencies and design ooding frequencies differentiating between rural, residential and industrial/commercial areas, and city centers are listed in Table 1. For larger developments and existing drainage systems with complex hydraulic ow patterns (e.g. with loops, backwater effects, etc.), direct assessment of hydraulic performance by sewer ow simulation models is recommended thus checking ooding frequencies in accordance with Table 1. Implicated demands for a more detailed simulation approach and an extended data base will be discussed below.

conditions may eventually lead to a rise in the water level above surface where water either escapes from the sewer system or prevents surface water from entering the sewer system. Fig. 1 describes different stages of surcharge. Fig. 2 illustrates the phenomenon of surface ooding. 2.2. Analysis of ooding phenomena Flooding in urban drainage systems as dened above may occur at different stages of hydraulic surcharge depending on the drainage system (separate or combined sewers), general drainage design characteristics as well as specic local constraints. When private sewage drains are directly connected to the public sewer system without backwater valves, the possible effects of hydraulic surcharge depend on the levels of the lowest sewage inlet inside the house (basement), the sewer line and the water level during surcharge, respectively. Whenever the water level in the public sewer exceeds the level of gravity inlets in the house below street level, ooding inside the house will occur due to backwater effects. In such a case ooding is possible without experiencing surface ooding. In the same way, hydraulic surcharge in the sewer system might produce ooding on private properties via storm drains, when their inlet level is below the water level of the surcharged storm or combined sewer. In both cases, the occurrence of ooding, being linked directly to the level of inlets versus water level (pressure height) in the sewer can be easily predicted by hydrodynamic sewer ow simulations, assuming the availability of physical data of the private drains and the public sewer system. Distinct from the situations described above, the occurrence and possible effects of surface ooding

2. Flooding in urban drainage systems 2.1. Hydraulic surcharge and ooding Linking drainage system hydraulic performance requirements directly with the frequency of ooding demands a clear denition of ooding and a distinction from the stateor different stagesof surcharge. According to EN 752 ooding describes a condition where wastewater and/or surface water escapes from or cannot enter a drain or sewer system and either remains on the surface or enters buildings. Distinct from ooding, the term surcharge is dened as a condition in which wastewater and/or surface water is held under pressure within a gravity drain or sewer system, but does not escape to the surface to cause ooding. Extended surcharge

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Fig. 1. Stages of sewer surcharge.

depend much more on local constraints and surface characteristics, e.g. street gradient, sidewalks and curb height. These characteristics, however, are much more difcult described physically, and these data are usually not available in practice. In addition, todays simulation models are not fully adequate to simulate the relevant hydraulic phenomena associated with surface ooding and surface ow along distinct ow paths. Due to these deciencies, the German standard ATV-A 118 Hydraulic design and simulation of drainage systems considers ood frequency to be inappropriate for direct computational assessment (ATV, 1999; Schmitt, 2001). The surcharge frequency is established as an additional criterion of hydraulic performance dened as the rise of (maximum) water level at manholes up to ground level. This borderline case of surchargethe transition from pressurized pipe ow to surface oodingcan be accurately described by nowadays dynamic sewer ow simulation models (Schmitt and Thomas, 2000). 2.3. Consequences of ooding Flooding in urban areas due to the failure of drainage systems causes large damage at buildings and other public and private infrastructure. Besides,

street ooding can limit or completely hinder the functioning of trafc systems and has indirect consequences such as loss of business and opportunity. The expected total damagedirect and indirect monetary damage costs as well as possible social consequencesis related to the physical properties of the ood, i.e. the water level above ground level, the extend of ooding in terms of water volume escaping from or not being entering the drainage system, and the duration of ooding. With sloped surfaces even the ow velocity on the surface might have an impact on potential ood damage.

Fig. 2. Extended street ooding.

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3. Modeling urban ooding In regard of the distinct stages and processes of surcharged sewer system and urban ooding as described above, simulation models for ood risk analysis are required to accurately describe the hydraulic phenomena of surcharged and ooded sewer systems, particularly - the transition from free surface ow to pressure ow in the sewer pipes - the rise of water level above ground level with water escaping from the sewer system - the occurrence of surface ow during surface ooding, and - the interaction between surface ow and pressurized sewer ow. The consideration of distinct surface ow and its interaction with sewer ow in surcharged sewer systems is denoted as dual drainage modeling with ow components on the surface and underground, rst described by Djordjevic et al. (1999) and illustrated in Fig. 3.

- single drainage areas (roofs, streets, parking lots, yards etc.), where rainfall is transformed into effective runoff depending on surface characteristics (slope, roughness, vegetation, paved/unpaved surface area etc.); - distinct surface drainage components, e.g. street gutters, that lead surface runoff to the underground sewer system via inlets; - surface areas, where surface ow might occur in case of surface ooding (e.g. street surface) - closed underground sewers forming the sewer network (including manholes, control structures and outlets). The single areas are connected to the sewer systems via gutters and/or inlets followed by closed pipes. In simulation models the single areas are mostly comprised to sub-catchments that are linked to distinct input elements of the sewer network, generally to the manholes being represented as system nodes. In general, the distinct surface drainage components are not represented by runoff models. The sum of all sub-catchments form the overall catchment area. For dual drainage simulation single areas need to be further distinguished as follows: (a) in regard to their connection to the sewer system as - areas linked completely via closed drains (e.g. roofs)

3.1. System analysis in view of dual drainage modeling. In regard to dual drainage modeling, urban drainage systems comprise of

Fig. 3. Interaction of surface and sewer ow (dual drainage concept).

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- areas linked via surface inlets and closed drains (e.g. parking lots) - areas on private sites draining to the street or side-walk surface - areas not connected to the sewer system (not runoff-relevant) (b) in regard to possible surface ow as - areas not subject to ooding (no interaction between surface and sewer ow; e.g. all roof areas - areas where surface ow occurs and is simulated during ooding, or - areas not to be considered in surface ow simulation.

(uni-directional). The module RisoSurf computes surface ow based upon a simplied representation of the shallow-water-equations using GIS-based surface data, e.g. street area and slope (longitudinal and lateral), gutters, culvert height, buildings and other features relevant for surface ow patterns. Dynamic sewer ow routing is applied for all underground drainage elements in the module HamokaRis. The model allows bi-directional exchange of ow volume between surface ow module RisoSurf and sewer ow module HamokaRis at dened exchange nodes. The bi-directional exchange is realized by interpreting inlets to the sewer system as possible sinks or sources in the mathematical model of both, surface and sewer ow simulation. 3.2.2. Rainfall-runoff simulation The RisUrSim model rst transforms rainfall into effective runoff using standard methods for interception, depression storage and soil inltration (previous areas only) as described in literature (e.g. Akan, 1993; Ashley et al., 1999). Surface runoff would then be handled in distinct detail depending on the specic situation of a single runoff area. For areas not considered for detailed surface ow simulation, e.g. roof areas, RisoReff uses a unithydrograph method to compute surface runoff as input to the sub-surface sewer system (uni-directional ow). 3.2.3. Hydraulic surface ow modeling The RisoSurf approach includes detailed hydraulic considerations for areas where surface ow occurs. Hydraulic (surface) ow modeling is generally based upon conservation laws of uid ow expressed in the NavierStokes equations. The fact that in surface ow the vertical dimension is much smaller than typical horizontal scale allows a simplied two-dimensional representation, the so-called shallow water ow equations (Hilden, 2003). The application of this detailed hydraulic method would be restricted to small areas only. Therefore, it only served as a benchmark for a further simplied two-dimensional approach where Mannings equation is used as an empirical ow formula. Neglecting

3.2. Simulation model RisUrSim The dual drainage model RisUrSim has been developed in order to meet the requirements of simulating urban ooding, focusing on the occurrence of distinct surface ow and its possible interaction with the surcharged sewer system. 3.2.1. General model features The overall structure of the model and the general simulation scheme are illustrated in Fig. 4. Following the transformation of rainfall to effective runoff by interception and depression storage simulation, surface runoff is handled in two parallel simulation modules. The module RisoReff is applied to areas where surface ooding as well as interaction between surface ow and sewer ow can be excluded (e.g. roofs, closed private ground). Here, surface runoff enters the sewer system at dened inlets

Fig. 4. Overall scheme of detailed simulation model RisUrSim.

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the terms of inertia in the momentum equation, leads to a simplied mathematical representation, expressed as Eq. (1) The application of this detailed hydraulic method would be restricted to small areas only. Therefore, it only served as a benchmark for a further simplied two-dimensional approach, where Mannings equation provides a closed-form expression for the two-dimensional velocity vector (u,v) that is used in the momentum Eq. (1) vh v uh v vh C C Z Sp vt vx vy t x,y h u v Sp (1)

time variable, spatial variable, water level, depth averaged velocity in x direction, depth averaged velocity in y direction, sink/source term as the exchange value with the pipe ow model,

The RisoSurf approach will be described in greater detail in Ettrich et al. (2004). From a mathematical point of view, the new and crucial point in this approach of hydraulic surface ow simulation is the coupling of the shallow water equation model of surface ow with the dynamic sewer ow model. Sink/source term Sp, being the primary term of exchange with the pipe ow model, requires particular consideration of numeric stability. This crucial point of coupled hydraulic ow routing procedure is further discussed in the paragraph Coupling modules RisoSurf and HamokaRis below. 3.2.4. Dynamic sewer ow modeling Sewer ow is simulated applying fully dynamic ow routing of unsteady, gradually varied ow and solving Saint-Venant-Equations numerically in an explicit difference scheme. The explicit difference scheme is applied in variable time steps that are permanently adjusted to the COURANT-criterion, guaranteeing numerical stability (Schmitt, 1986). At each time step, the procedure of dynamic ow routing starts by computing ow values for each conduit (sewer segment between nodes) based upon

momentum equation and instantaneous water levels at the nodes at the end of the last time step. In the next step of the dynamic ow routing procedure the ow volume is balanced at each node, taking into account inlets from house drains and all surface inlets connected, as well as inows and outows from sewers connected at the nodes. The resulting change of volume is drawn to free water surface available at the node, thus producing a change of water level at the node. In order to improve numerical stability, the two phases are applied in a half-stepfull-step procedure during each time step as described in Roesner et al. (1988) and Schmitt (1986). The underground sewer system is represented by a network of nodes and conduits (sewer segment between nodes). In contrast to conventional modeling, not only manholes but also street inlets and house drains are considered as extra nodes to fully achieve the connection of surface and underground drainage system at all locations where interaction between surface and sewer ow and potentially ooding might occur. This will be further discussed in context with the case study below. 3.2.5. Modeling interaction of surface and sewer ow The simulation of the interaction between surface and sewer ow is based upon the denition of exchange locations. Each runoff area is allocated to one specied exchange location as illustrated in Fig. 5. Here, all relevant information for surface and sewer ow simulation (instantaneous runoff, water level, exchange volume) is available at the beginning of each time step for all simulation modules and is renewed at the end of the time step in the following way: (1) The hydrologic runoff model RisoReff only supports uni-directional ow and is applied to all areas not considered for surface ow. Computed runoff from those hydrologic areas is passed to the single exchange location to which the area is connected. The exchange volume would be the runoff volume in the according time step. (2) Areas simulated with the hydrologic model approach can be connected to the underground drainage system in two alternative ways:

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Fig. 6. Procedure to synchronize time steps of simulation modules RisoSurf and HamokaRis in simulation tool RisUrSim. Fig. 5. Possible links and interaction of surface runoff, surface ow and sewer ow at exchange nodes.

(2a) hydrologic areas directly discharging to the sewer system via surface inlets or private drains (sevice pipes); This procedure works much like the well known approaches of commercial urban runoff simulation software of the EXTRAN type. If the instantaneous sewer capacity at the exchange location would not be sufcient to take in the surface runoff, or if water escapes from the sewer system due to surcharge, the water volume would be stored at the specic exchange location in an articial storage and re-entered to the sewer system with diminishing surcharge. (2b) hydrologic areas discharging to surface areas where surface ow is considered by hydraulic model RisoSurf; Such an exchange location can be seen as an edge where the inow to the hydraulic area would be evenly distributed over the full length of the edge (exchange arc 1 in Fig. 6). (3) The hydraulic surface ow module RisoSurf allows bi-directional exchange of runoff volume:

from the surface area to the sewer system, if there is sufcient sewer capacity; from the sewer to the hydraulic surface in case of sewer surcharge when the water level in the sewer system rises above ground level; (4) In case of surcharge, water level above ground as provided by surface ow simulation module RisoSurf at exchange nodes would be used by dynamic sewer ow module HamokaRis in the momentum equation in the following time step. If the balance of ow volume at the nodes in HamokaRis results in a water level above ground, the associated surplus volume would be transferred to the surface ow simulation by storing this volume in the exchange location and taken into account by RisoSurf in the sink/source term Sp (Eq. (1)) the next time step. 3.2.6. Coupling of modules RisoSurf and HamokaRis The implementation of coupled hydraulic ow routing for surface and sewer ow modules RisoSurf and HamokaRis requires particular consideration of numeric stability and observation of continuity as well. Numeric stability has been secured by a synchronized administration of dynamic time step selection according to Fig. 6. The Engine denes

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Fig. 7. Overall structure of the RisUrSim simulation tool (Engine).

the instantaneous time step size as a minimum of instantaneously allowable time increments delivered by the single modules. Continuity of mass has been observed by creating an exchange table where all instantaneous inows, outows and storage volumes at any exchange location are balanced during simulation and veried in a system-wide total balance at the end of simulation period. The overall model structure of RisUrSim including data processing, interaction and synchronization of simulation modules is shown in Fig. 7.

4. Model applicationcase study One of the test areas to prove the concept of the RisUrSim method is a sub-catchment in the city of Kaiserslautern (Fig. 8). Some of the houses in the southern street of the test-area have been subject to basement ooding during heavy rainfall in the past. To prepare the model application, detailed surveying has been carried out to accurately describe ow-relevant surface areas. Besides, a ow monitoring device has been installed to gather

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Fig. 8. Test case area KL-Erzhuetten (Germany).

data during rainfall events for model calibration under surcharge conditions. This, however, has not been successful as during the period of monitoring not a single surcharge or even ooding event occurred. 4.1. Data needs Data needs for detailed simulation of urban ooding are related to a distinct representation of the runoff areas, the surface characteristics and local constraints that possibly inuence surface ow patterns, and the underground sewer system itself. 4.1.1. Runoff areas In order to most accurately describe runoff their behavior, single runoff areas within the sub-catchment have been classied and sized according as with distinct model parameters to quantify interception,

depression storage and inltration. (1) Imperviously paved areas 1.1Streets and other trafc areas 1.2 Span-roofs (O 10% grade) 1.3Flat roofs (except green roofs) 1.4Yards, private parking lots etc. (2) Previously paved areas 2.1 Streets and other trafc areas 2.2 Yards, private parking lots etc. (3) Unpaved areas 3.1 Green roofs 3.2 Lawns, garden area 3.3 Garden area

4.1.2. Surface characteristics A Digital Terrain Model (DTM) has been set up in a high resolution in order to apply detailed