Investigation of urban water quality using artificial rainfall
(2004) Investigation of urban water quality using artificial rainfall. In Proceedings Watershed 2004, Dearborn, Michigan, USA.
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Abstract
As the concept of sustainable communities is gaining increasing recognition around the world it is of critical importance to investigate the water quality of urban environments. The contamination of waterways in urban communities seriously affects the utility of water for different purposes and degrades the aesthetic value of natural watercourses. Research investigations in the past have generally focused on suspended solids and nutrients, which are relatively easy to monitor. Unfortunately the build-up and wash-off of micro pollutants such as polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons (PAH) and heavy metals (HM) have received limited research interest in urban water quality research even though these can cause significant health and environmental impacts even at low concentrations. This paper describes how artificial rainfall, using a specially designed highly portable rainfall simulator was employed in order to generate water quality data from urban environments. This approach was adopted in order to investigate the wash-off of pollutants from paved surfaces and to overcome constraints due to the highly unreliable rainfall in South-East Queensland Australia. The rainfall simulator was able to demonstrate its ability to satisfactory simulate natural rainfall in the area. The results obtained confirmed that the rainfall simulator is a reliable tool for urban water quality research and can be used to simulate pollutant wash-off.
| Item Type: | Conference Paper |
|---|---|
| Status: | Published |
| Keywords: | Rainfall simulation, Urban water quality, Urban stormwater pollution, Water quality research |
| Subjects: | 250000 Chemical Sciences > 250400 Analytical Chemistry > 250408 Chemometrics 290000 Engineering and Technology > 290800 Civil Engineering > 290802 Water and Sanitary Engineering 290000 Engineering and Technology > 291100 Environmental Engineering > 291101 Environmental Engineering Modelling 290000 Engineering and Technology > 291100 Environmental Engineering > 291103 Environmental Engineering Design |
| ID Code: | 4213 |
| Deposited By: | Goonetilleke, Ashantha |
| Deposited On: | 18 May 2006 |
| Alternative Locations: | http://www.wef.org/ |
| Copyright Owner: | Copyright 2004 (please consult author) |