Model Library

Capabilities

• Primarily modeling water runoff quantity and quality over time or during single events in urban areas;
• Flexible hydraulic modeling of unlimited sizes;
• Estimating pollutant loads associated with runoff;
• The SWMM model uses EMC and exponential functions to model wash-off and improve runoff water quality simulation;
• Climate Predictions Add-on Tool (SWMM Climate Adjustment Tool (SWMM-CAT));
• Design Storm Generator Add-on Tool;
• Surface Processes Modeling: Rainfall, evaporation, snowmelt, interception, and runoff routing;
• Subsurface Flow Modeling: Infiltration, percolation, groundwater interaction, and interflow;
• Drainage & Control Modeling: rainfall-dependent infiltration and inflow in sewersheds and LID-based rainfall/runoff capture.

 Limitations

• Fundamental problem in coupling the SWMM and GA with continuous simulation (Taheriyoun et al., 2023);
• Limited capacity to simulate plant-soil-nutrient interactions in an agri­cultural context (Neumann et al., 2021);
• SWMM represents an infiltration trench as a simply linear reservoir, and as such, flow routing along the length of the trench is not addressed (Sofijanic et al., 2023);
• Bottom seepage is assumed uniform and defined by a single user defined infiltration rate, where in a real system factor such as hydraulic gradient and soil saturation would influence actual seepage rates (Sofijanic et al., 2023);
• It cannot simulate changes in water quality centered on the algae generated in the actual river and has limitations in simulating non-urban catchments (Jung et al., 2022).

Inputs

Topography data, LULC data, Soil data, Meteorological data, Hydrological data, River systems, Sewer networks, System of nodes, Links and sub-catchment areas, Water quality data, Control structures Data, BMP data

Outputs

• Reports on time-series hydrological and water quality loadings in each sub-catchment.
• Time series of flow and depth at specific locations.
• Performance of build-up/wash-off parameters to evaluate effectiveness of best management practices (BMPs) and low impact development (LID) controls.
• Flood simulation.

References

Ye, C., Dang, T. D., Xu, X., Stewart, C. J., Arias, M. E., Zhang, Y., & Zhang, Q. (2023). Coupled effects of future rainfall and land use on urban stormwater drainage system in Tampa, Florida (USA). Ecological Indicators, 153, 110402. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecolind.2023.110402

Snarski, J. W., Dietz, M., Helton, A. M., & Knighton, J. (2023). Potential hydrologic pathways of deicing salt chloride transport evaluated with SWMM. Journal of Hydrologic Engineering, 28(8), 04023022. https://doi.org/10.1061/JHYEFF.HEENG-5907.

Objectives
This paper analyzed the coupled effects of future rainfall and land use on urban drainage systems in terms of surface runoff quantity and flood area changes using EPA SWMM. Additionally, this study examined the coupled effects of future rainfall and land use changes on flood area variations, considering the capacity of drainage infrastructure and elevation variation of the City of Tampa.

This project aimed to (1) estimate the hydrologic pathways for chloride transport in a small, urbanized catchment in the Northeastern United States; and (2) provide a critical evaluation of simulation routines commonly used to guide the management of deicing salts.