Sensitivity of hydrodynamic parameters in the simulation of water transfer processes in a permeable pavement

Abstract

ABSTRACT The high urbanization process has caused profound changes in the components of the hydrological cycle, causing various problems such as flooding, rainwater degradation, among others. Low Impact Development (LID) techniques have proven to be a viable and effective alternative to stormwater management, reducing runoff, and increasing the infiltration and evapotranspiration capacity of urban areas. The operation prediction of a compensatory technique, such as permeable pavement, depends on the hydrodynamic properties of the permeable pavement layers and the subsoil properties. The numerical solutions based on the solution of Richards’ equation have been the most used to estimate water transfer processes. The objective of this work was to investigate the influence of hydrodynamic parameters on the hydraulic behavior of a permeable pavement installed in Recife-PE. The effect of 5 hydrodynamical parameters was analyzed for a highly heterogeneous permeable pavement. The Hydrus 1-D model was used to simulate water transfer processes on the permeable pavement. Initially, a sensitivity analysis of the mesh refinement degree was performed to simulate the transfer processes in the permeable pavement. The response surface method was applied to the hydrodynamic parameters to perform the sensitivity analysis. The calculations were carried out for hourly and daily time scales. As a result, it was observed that the spatial discretization had no influence on the scenarios of the flow variable. The use of a daily time resolution reduced the influence of events with higher precipitation intensity, underestimating the generation of runoff. The surface runoff showed higher sensitivity to the parameters of the superficial layer, especially to the saturated hydraulic conductivity. The cumulative infiltration and groundwater recharge showed low sensitivity when the hydrodynamic parameters of the retention curve and the saturated hydraulic conductivity varied. The volume of water stored in the profile showed higher sensitivity to the ‘θs’ and ‘n’ parameter of the subbase layer. The use of meteorological input data with different temporal resolutions for the simulation of the water transfer processes in the permeable pavement section demonstrated that the hydrodynamic parameters have a higher influence than the climatic variables in the daily resolution. The use of meteorological data with hourly temporal resolution demonstrated that runoff was hypothetically controlled by meteorological variables. The mesh and parameter sensitivity analysis can influence researches that seek to understand water transfer processes in a structure as a permeable pavement through the Richards’ equation, generating a lower operating cost and speeding up simulations.