Test of the efficiency of three storm water quality models with a rich set of data

Abstract

The objective of this article is to test the efficiency of three different Storm Water Quality Model (SWQM) on the same data set (34 rain events, SS measurements) sampled on a 42 ha watershed in the center of Paris. The models have been calibrated at the scale of the rain event. Considering the mass of pollution calculated per event, the results on the models are satisfactory but that they are in the same order of magnitude as the simple hydraulic approach associated to a constant concentration. In a second time, the mass of pollutant at the outlet of the catchment at the global scale of the 34 events has been calculated. This approach shows that the simple hydraulic calculations gives better results than SWQM. Finally, the pollutographs are analysed, showing that storm water quality models are interesting tools to represent the shape of the pollutographs, and the dynamics of the phenomenon which can be useful in some projects for managers.