Abstract
Abstract. Today's cities face simultaneous challenges due to rapidly growing
populations, urban sprawl, climate change, and environmental pollution which
pose a pressure on our traditional urban drinking water supplies. In this
context, stormwater could augment our over-drafted urban groundwater
resources. However, urban stormwater runoff carries a myriad of dissolved
contaminants (e.g., organics, metals, nutrients), which pose a serious risk
to the environmental and public health. Moreover, dissolved contaminants of
urban origin – such as trace metals and organic compounds of emerging
concern – may not be adequately removed by conventional stormwater
treatments. Therefore, it is of the utmost importance to fully understand
stormwater contaminant presence, transport, and fate in the built
environment to design novel or improve conventional treatment systems. To
address this knowledge gap, we have conducted 7 field sampling campaigns
during storm events at different Barcelona locations (within 3 districts) to
investigate contaminant presence in different urban compartments (e.g.,
roofs, conventional streets with automobile traffic, pedestrian streets, and
green infrastructure outlets). Preliminary results have confirmed presence
of toxic metals in Barcelona urban rain and stormwater runoff along with
significant differences depending on the catchment areas. After a storm
event, trace metal concentrations followed the order: roof rain <
pedestrian street runoff < conventional street runoff. Additionally,
blue-green infrastructures (bioretention systems) had lower mean metal
concentrations at the effluent (outlet) than the influents (inlet). Our
initial results on metal occurrence in stormwater collected in the city of
Barcelona will provide stormwater quality foundation for water agencies,
municipalities, and companies in other water-stressed regions with
Mediterranean climate.
Funder
Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca
Subject
General Chemical Engineering
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