Urban Drainage Newletter #13 |
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[this is a publication of the IAWQ/IAHR Joint committe on Urban Drainage] January 2000 Committee Members
Sydney, Australia, Sept. 3, 1999 Ladies and gentlemen, My name is Bernard Chocat, I am professor of civil engineering and urban planing, Department of the National Institute for Applied Sciences of Lyon. It is in France, as you should have probably guessed. I am the new chairman of the Joint Committee on Urban Drainage, succeeding Wolfgang Schilling. I understand very well that most of you have planes to catch or buy some last souvenirs, so I will try to be as brief as possible. Anyway, I would like to spend some time to explain what is the Joint Committee on Urban Drainage, what are its activities and what are, from my point of view, the main issues our community must deal with in the forthcoming years. First, the committee on urban drainage is called "Joint Committee", because it is under the joint sponsorship of IAHR – International Association for Hydraulic Engineering and Research and IWA – International Water Association. The Joint Committee was created in Southampton in 1978, during the first conference on urban storm drainage. The main reason for its creation was to ensure the continuity of the urban drainage conferences, and, since 1978, seven other conferences have been held, every three years: Urbana-Champaign, USA (1981); Goteborg, Sweden; Lausanne, Switzerland; Osaka, Japan; Niagara Falls, Canada; Hannover, Germany; and, the last one here in Sydney. The next one will be in Portland, USA (see Section 7 of this newsletter). Since the gala dinner, everybody knows that there are six iron men who have attended all the 8 conferences. I would like to congratulate them for their loyalty. The Joint Committee should comprise eight to 12 members, and currently it has eight, whose names are as follows: B. Chocat, J. Ball, W. Rauch, L. Roesner, D. Stephenson, C. Tucci, M. Zaizen and E. Zeman. The activities of the Joint Committee are administered by a secretary, the current and very efficient one being Jiri Marsalek. New members are elected by current members for 3 years, and their mandate can be extended for three more years. I said that the Joint Committee has been created to ensure regular organisation of international conferences on urban drainage. In fact, its goals are a lot more ambitious. The Joint Committee aims to develop research on urban water management and to promote the dissemination of research results on a world-wide basis. For these purposes, several tools are used: The first one is the organisation of working groups; the list of the current Working Groups and the names of their chairmen are as follows:
If you would like some more information, please, contact these chairmen.
I said that the Joint Committee was initiated in 1978. That means that 1978 could be understood as the year of birth of our community. If we follow this idea that means that our scientific community in the field of urban water management is now 21 years old, which in most countries, is the age of majority. And this point raises an interesting question: are we ready to emancipate? Do we constitute a fully-grown scientific community? This embarrassing question can be divided into several sub-questions. The first one is the following: Is urban drainage a well established scientific field or does it just constitute a conglomerate of different disciplines, each one ignoring the others? My personal answer falls between maybe and probably. The positive point is that an increasing number of people regularly attend our conferences that define their field around this subject. The negative point is that I am not sure that exchanges among the disciplines are always conclusive. Anyway, my first action as a chairman has been to ask the Joint committee to begin a comprehensive reflection on this subject. The second question is the following: Are we fully grown? Are we able to attract all the researchers who are interested in the field? If you look at the list of people attending this conference, you will see that the answer to this sub-question is clearly NO! Australia and the New Zealand provided 35% of the attendees, Western Europe also 35%, Japan 20%, North America 5% and the rest of the world 5%. Obviously some parts of the world can offer more than they currently do: Eastern Europe, Africa, Asia, South America and the last but not the least, North America. We can not pretend to be a world-wide association if we are just able to gather 50% of researchers interested in the field. I would ask all people involved in the Joint Committee: the chairmen of the working groups, the organisers of conferences, and specially the organisers of the forthcoming conferences on urban drainage, to find efficient ways that can enlarge our representativeness. The last sub-question is: Are we efficient? Do we use carefully the existing knowledge in order that each new research study can produce a new stone contributing to the achievement of a common edifice? I am not really sure. I read very carefully the references of the papers presented at the last conference in Hannover, and I made two embarrassing findings: The first one was that 70% of the references of the papers originated from the same country as that of the author. Obviously urban water management is not a national science. So I would ask every researcher and specially all students starting their Ph.D. studies to begin by a serious and comprehensive search of the existing literature, in order not to discover the wheel once again. I think that this problem is also the responsibility of reviewers who must pay more attention to this point in the process of selecting papers. The second observation of concern is the astonishing number of journals and conferences in which drainage papers have been published. Obviously nobody is able to attend 30 conferences a year and to read one hundred journals a month. I understand very well that urban water management implies a lot of specialties: hydrology, hydraulics, chemistry, climatology, biology, urban planning and so on, each of them having its specific journals and its specific conferences. Nevertheless, if we really want to promote urban water management as an independent field of investigation we must use our specific ways of communication. That means to publish in a small number of common journals and to attend a small numbers of common conferences. Concerning the journals, I think we must use those which are published by our parental associations and those, which are not too numerous, and are specifically dedicated to the topic of urban water. With respect to the conferences supported by the Joint Committee, they are listed in Section 7 of this Newsletter. Before finishing my speech, I would like to underline two more points. The first one concerns data. From my point of view, the progress of knowledge in our field is currently limited by the lack of comprehensive sets of good quality data. All of you know how difficult and expensive are in-situ measurements. So we must share our efforts in collecting such data, especially by using the same protocols, and we must share the data themselves. I would like to appeal to the editors in charge of journals or in charge of conferences to encourage authors to publish their sets of data. I think that a paper presenting in a comprehensive way a catchment, the data collection methodology, the protocols and the resulting data is a very good paper that can ensure authors’ notoriety. My last point concerns the working groups. They constitute the active force of our organisation and I think that their role must increase, particularly in the preparation of conferences. The Joint Committee will have to discuss this point in the forthcoming weeks and I do not want to prejudge the results of these discussions. But what I want to say is that our organisation is a living organisation. Some working groups are going to disappear, but some others must appear, reflecting the changes in research needs. If one of you finds it interesting to develop a working group on a specific subject, the process is very simple: just submit a one page proposal to Jiri or to any member of the Joint Committee, describing the subject, the objectives and giving the names of some colleagues who would be interested. Your proposals will be always welcome. A last word: Thanks to the organisers of this conference for their welcome and for the quality of their organisation, thanks to all the reviewers, the session chairmen and the speakers for the quality of their work, and thank you for your attention. Bernard Chocat
The next meeting of the Joint Committee has been tentatively scheduled in conjunction with the IWA Congress in Paris, France, in July 2000. Jiri Marsalek, Joint Committee Secretary Group activities were reported by Prof. Cedo Maksimovic. The group has been very active, with many activities connected to the 1998 UDM conference held in London. The group’s report was distributed with the meeting agenda. Dr. Fuchs (Hannover, Germany - not present at the Conference) was elected as the new chairman and would take over after the Sydney conference. Summary of activities - proceedings of the UDM 1998 were published in two volumes, selected papers are republished in two journal issues - Water Science and Technology and others in Urban Water. The next UDM conference will be held in the USA (probably in Orlando, Florida, in 2001). The group is working on the Y2K2C initiative - to produce a new generation computer models free of outdated concepts from the pre-informatic period. The group will be involved in the UNESCO Symposium Frontiers in Water Management in Urban Environment, Marseille, France, March 21-23, 2001. 3.2. The Real-Time Control of Urban Drainage Systems (RTCUDS) Working Group (Chairman: Dr. H. Colas, Asseau BPR, 19 avenue du General Leclerc, 75014 Paris, France, Ph. 33 (0)1 43 20 30 96, Fax 33 (0)1 43 20 30 66, e-mail - hcolas@groupe-bpr.com This group has just been taken over by Hubert Colas, who developed group’s work plan. Some of the issues to be addressed include: Water level, velocity and water quality continuous sensors and apparatus; RTC simulation packages; Control strategies and software; Data management and data validation; Telecommunication; Flow regulation equipment; Rainfall measurement and radar rainfall prediction. For details, please contact Hubert Colas - hcolas@groupe-bpr.com The objective of the group is to disseminate information about sewerage systems, and to co-ordinate research and development activities relating to physical aspects (structure and layout), physical processes (hydraulics and transport of solids), chemical and microbial processes (pollutant occurrence, transformations and interactions), and interactions where appropriate with sources and destinations such as environment (via overflows) and treatment plants. Activities are related to system design, operation, maintenance and control, and the group acts as a focus for (in-sewer) process activities. At present, the group comprises 22 committee members from 15 countries. Some ongoing and planned activities and events are:
For further information, the SS&PWG has a homepage on the Internet: 3.4. Working Group on Source Control for Stormwater Management (SOCOMA) (Chairman: Govert Geldof, Tauw Civiel en Bouw bv, P.O. Box 830, 7400 A V Deventer, THE NETHERLANDS, Fax: +31 570 699 333, Email: gdg@tauw.nl
3.5. Working Group on Urban Rainfall (GUR) (Chairman: Dr. Thomas
Einfalt, Einfalt & Hydrotec GbR, Wakenitzmauer 33, D-23552 Lübeck
Tel. ++49-451-7027333 Fax: ++49-451-7027339 Email: thomas@einfalt.de Urban Rainfall group activities were reported on by Thomas Einfalt. The group organised a workshop in Pontresina (Switzerland) in 1997, the proceedings were published as a special issue of Water Science and Technology. The planned workshop in Malaysia had to be cancelled for lack of funding. A task sub-group on procedures and methods of rainfall measurement is receiving information from various countries. Group’s web site will have to move, probably to IWA. Contacts with IAHS - initially, they objected to the planned group’s workshop in Pontresina (detailed in Section 7), but these problems have been overcome in discussions with Prof. Rodda and a new era of collaboration has started. IAHS now supports this workshop. 3.6. Technology Exchange, Transfer and Training Working
Group (TETTWG) (Chairman: Dr. Jozsef Gayer, VIKUTI Rt, P.O. Box 27,
Budapest H-1453, HUNGARY, Ph: 361 215 61 40, Fax: 361 216 15 14, e-mail:
jgayer@attmail.com Jozsef Gayer reported that the group organised a successful intensive short course on "Technology, Management and Operation of Urban Drainage Systems in Africa – the Present and the Future" hosted by the Department of Technology of Makerere University in Kampala, Uganda, March 28–April 3, 1999. Participants in this course were particularly enthusiastic and worked hard into late evening hours. Collaboration started with the IWA Specialist Group on Water and Waste Technology and Management Strategies for Developing Countries, headed by Philip Pybus (South Africa). Prof. Braga (Brazil) would like this group to hold a drainage course in Brazil. Major problems - lack of sponsorship. For further information, check TETTWG’s homepage on the Internet: 4.1. IAHR Since our last newsletter, the IAHR has hired a new Executive Director, Dr. Christopher George, who is now heading the IAHR Secretariat. The association now operates under a new name, International Association of Hydraulic Engineering and Research, but the same acronym (IAHR) and logo have been kept. The 2001 Congress will be held in Beijing, and the following one in Thessaloniki. The editors of the Journal of Hydraulic Research of IAHR are currently examining the possibility of opening up the journal to papers on applications. In the meantime, IAHR has re-launched the Journal of Water and Maritime Engineering, in partnership with the British Institute of Civil Engineering. For reports on sections and regional activities, check the IAHR web page www.iahr.org IWA (formerly IAWQ) News The Association is now operating under a new name, the
International Water Association. The new association has over 8,500 members
and a strong potential for further growth. The latest information on IWA
activities can be obtained from the IWA home page http://www.iwahq.org.uk IWA Publishing IWA Publishing is planning an extensive range of new
publications for 2000 and beyond. If you wish to submit a publishing proposal,
are in the process of writing a book or wish to discuss a publishing idea,
please contact Michael Dunn, Publisher mdunn@iwap.co.uk,
or Alan Click, Editor aclick@iwap.co.uk In response to the worldwide need for safe and sustainable water supplies and sanitation, IWA members started this new Foundation. One billion people worldwide lack safe water supplies. Nearly three billion lack hygienic sanitation. Three million children die each year from water-related disease. And yet, efforts to tackle this tragedy are often hampered by the unsustainable use of limited water resources. In their day-to-day work, around the world, IWA members are acutely aware of these needs. They are also aware that professionals in countries with the greatest need are those most likely to find it difficult to get access to resources and professional support. The 8th International Conference on Urban Storm Drainage was held in Sydney, Australia, from Aug. 30 to Sept. 3, 1999. The conference was co-chaired by Drs. James Ball and Brett Phillips; Dr. Ball’s report on the conference follows. As with previous conferences in this series, the conference was held with the International Water Association and the International Association for Hydraulic Engineering and Research being the primary sponsors. An additional primary sponsor for this meeting was the Institution of Engineers, Australia who also provided underwriting for the conference. Secondary sponsorship was obtained from The University of New South Wales, the CRC for Freshwater Ecology while individual events during the meeting were sponsored by Hydra Software, Wan Mokhtar Nawang, CSR Humes, Rocla Pipeline Products, and CDS Technologies. A total of 373 full registrations and 37 single day registrations were received for the meeting. An interesting feature of the registrations was the high proportion of registrations received in the two (2) days prior to the conference and the first two (2) days of registrations at the meeting, with a significant number of these registrations being from international registrants. On a continental basis, the representation was Africa - 2, Asia - 87, Australasia - 141, Europe – 121, North America - 14, and South America – 2. The countries from which these registrants came illustrated the extent of interest in management of the urban water cycle throughout the world. The usefulness of this meeting for dissemination of information regarding new techniques and knowledge throughout the international community is confirmed also by the widespread origins of the meeting delegates. A total of 280 papers were presented at the meeting with the topics discussed at the meeting including Asset management, Best management practices, CSOs, Education, Gas Transfer, GIS, Hydrologic modelling, Infiltration, Channel junctions, Pesticides and metals, Pollutant loads, Rainfall, RTC, Roof drainage, Sediments, Sewer sediments, Stormwater management, Sustainable development, Water cycle management, Water harvesting, Water quality control Ponds, and Wetlands. As can be seen from this list of topics, the topics discussed covered a wide range of interest areas with the areas of interest continuing to expand at successive conferences in the series. Furthermore, to enable presentation of the papers covering this wide diversity of topics it was necessary to run five (5) concurrent sessions. This appeared to operate very well with the majority of speakers maintaining the schedule. The Stormwater Industry Association organised a Trade Exhibition, in conjunction with the formal meeting. This exhibition, while not a part of the conference, nonetheless provided the delegates with additional information and was found by the majority of delegates to be a worthwhile adjunct to the meeting. Finally, the Stormwater Industry Association also organised a series of workshops that ran in conjunction with the conference. Like the Trade Exhibition, the workshops were successful and a useful addition to the formal presentation of papers at the conference. In conclusion, this meeting was successful and reaffirmed the usefulness of this conference series for the dissemination of information and for the development of collaborative linkages among the many workers in the field of urban water management. NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Coping with Floods: Learning from recent experience, Malenovice, Czech Republic, May 16-21, 1999 (reported by J. Marsalek and E. Zeman). The NATO Advanced Research Workshop, which was attended by 53 invited experts from 16 countries (Bulgaria, Canada, Czech Republic, Denmark, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, Italy, Russia, Poland, Portugal, Slovakia, The Netherlands, Turkey, Ukraine, and the United States), focused on a broad field of floods and their consequences. The workshop program addressed a number of selected issues which were defined during the workshop preparation: Flood analysis and recent floods; Flood impacts on the society, economy, and environment; Flood management - overview, non-structural measures and structural measures; and, Post-flood measures. Background - workshop discussions indicated that flood issues are vitally interesting, complex, and timely, and the selected sub-topics, which were identified, deserve further detailed analysis, beyond the framework of this workshop. It has to be recognized that the occurrence of floods is random and corresponds to the development of climatic and meteorological conditions, whose origin cannot be predicted in time and space. Floods will be occurring in the future and their frequency can be estimated with an upward trend, depending on changes in watershed characteristics (urbanization, deforestation, changes in land cultivation). Influences of these changes on floods can be analyzed by simulation models and used in selection of remedial measures. Analysis of all contributions presented at the workshop and extensive discussions resulted in the recommendations listed below.
Workshop proceedings will be published by Kluwer Academic Publishers in 2000 (for details, contact J. Marsalek at jiri.marsalek@cciw.ca. Australia (reported by Dr. J.E. Ball) Among the other notable occurrences over the past twelve months has been the continuation of the CRC for Catchment Hydrology, the success of the Water ’99 conference in Brisbane and the submission for examination of a number of doctoral dissertations in the field of urban drainage and the successful acceptance of these dissertations. The continuation of the CRC for Catchment Hydrology for a further seven year period provides a sustained source of funds for the researchers attached to the CRC. One change to the CRC for Catchment Hydrology, however, has been the appointment of Associate Professor Tony Wong as Program Leader for the Urban Hydrology area. Urban drainage in Brazil has been designed with the concept of draining water from urban surfaces as quickly as possible through pipes and channels. There is no control of peak increases at the minor drainage level and most of these increases will impact on the major drainage as well. To cope with this problem, public administration had developed many drainage works such as major drainage channels and pipes in the secondary drainage network. These types of solution have only transferred the flood problem from one section of the basin to another, with high costs. In Belo Horizonte the cost of some drainage channels has been about US $ 25 millions/km. Due to increasing flood impacts and high costs, the drainage practice is changing and some major cities in the country are developing Urban Drainage Master Plans, including in Porto Alegre (2 million inhabitants); Curitiba (2 millions); São Paulo (16 millions); and, Belo Horizonte (4 millions). Rio de Janeiro is planning a master drainage study in the near future. All these plans are replacing the mentioned old concept with a modern concept of volume control at the source. There are many difficulties encountered when dealing with urban drainage in developing countries, such as: lack of sanitary control; cross-connections of sanitary sewer and storm drainage networks; fast and unpredictable urban development; lack of appropriate institutional conditions: laws and regulation; law enforcement; lack of qualified professionals at the municipal level, etc. Urban drainage impacts in many places are mainly consequences of the population social and economical conditions. To deal with these conditions, one has to understand the public reaction to drainage design and control. Czech republic Prof. J. Pollert reports from Prague (Head, Laboratory of Ecological Risks in Urban Drainage (LERMO), Faculty of Civil Engineering, Czech Technical University, Thakurova 7, 166 29 Praha 6, Czech republic, Ph./FAX: +420 (2) 2435 4367, e-mail: pollert@fsv.cvut.cz Under a new initiative of the Czech Ministry of Education, Prof. Pollert’s team has obtained a grant to establish the Laboratory of Ecological Risks in Urban Drainage, at the Technical University in Prague, the Faculty of Civil Engineering. After one year of existence, 10 young Ph.D. students were enrolled and pursue research on sewer solids transport with respect to hydraulic conditions and the impacts on receiving waters during wet weather. The theoretical education is combined with mathematical simulations, laboratory experiments and the monitoring in the field. The laboratory is equipped for physical/chemical investigations, and additional equipment is available in the adjacent hydraulic laboratory, including an experimental pipeline, and models of swirl and helical bend overflow structures. The Laboratory equipment allows for on-line measurements and control. Collaboration with the Municipality of Prague and its Bureau of Sewerage in practical applications revealed the problem of suburban districts draining into small creeks. The natural flow capacity of these creeks is much smaller (2-3 times) than stormwater outflow from contributing urban areas. On-site infiltration of runoff solved this problem only partly. Retention basins or stormwater wetlands are the only feasible solutions. The stored water can be used to increase the minimum flow in receiving waters, and for off-site infiltration and irrigation, where stored water quality and local conditions allow this. The group of the ‘oldest’ staff members of the Laboratory prepared the Storm Water Management Regulations for the Czech Ministry of Agriculture in the form of Methodical Instructions. The Methodical Instructions with respect to the Water Law are based on the fact that the discharge of wastewater diluted by stormwater is of random and transient character, and cannot be checked without a complex monitoring system. Therefore, the water supply management authority determines according to these instructions the conditions for operation of the combined sewer system during wet-weather, in order to minimise negative effects of discharges of diluted wastewater on the receiving waters. The instructions consider both the current state of the art in the field of urban drainage and the requirements on the quality of receiving waters by national and regional institutions and local citizens, and the feasibility of the measures required for implementation of the regulations. The Methodical Instructions are divided into four parts, General Principles of Disposal of Stormwater, Emission Conditions for Discharging Wastewater, Receiving Water Conditions for Discharging Storm Wastewater, and the Principles for Discharging Wastewater from Sewage Treatment Plants during Wet Weather. At this time, these Methodical Instructions are discussed by professionals from the municipalities and other authorities. For details, contact Prof. Pollert. France (reported by Prof. B. Chocat) Lyon - The OTHU project (Field Experimental
Observatory for Urban Hydrology) aims to create a field experimental framework
for research in urban hydrology, by monitoring various catchments (rainfall,
flow and pollutants transfers) and receiving waters (one site with small
urban rivers receiving CSOs, and one site with settling and infiltration
tanks for separate runoff in an industrial area). The OTHU project supports
several research programs, including metrology, modelling, pollutant transfer
and treatability, physical and chemical characterisation of pollutants,
and impacts of discharges on small streams and sensitive groundwater resources.
The project is led by the laboratory for Urban Hydrology at the INSA of
Lyon, in association with 15 other regional university laboratories, in
close collaboration with the Urban Community of Lyon, and with the support
of Water Agencies.
Nantes - The LCPC Water Division, located near Nantes, France is investigating several specific subjects in connection with studies of stormwater management in urban areas and at transport infrastructures:
This division is member of a French Grouping of Scientific Interest ‘Urban Soils’. Contact : Georges Raimbault George.Raimbault@lcpc.f Paris - As a follow up to the important research program conducted from 1994 to 1999 on the experimental urban catchment "Le Marais" in Paris, CEREVE is about to develop, in partnership with the municipality of Paris, SIAAP and the French Water Agencies, an experimental program on several (5 or 6) adjacent catchments, with areas ranging from several tens to several thousands of hectares. This field observatory will make it possible to study changes in water quality between the upstream and downstream reaches of a large catchment, main sources of pollution and dominant mechanisms in relation to the spatial scale, and pollutant transport and transformation processes on a more local scale. This will be an experimental site combining several research teams and promoting a synergy between researchers and sewer system managers. The main research topics at this site will address: sources of micro-pollutants on urban surfaces, sources of organic matter inside the combined sewers and mechanisms of their accumulation and scouring, transformation processes during the transport in sewer systems, modelling of wet-weather flow pollution loads, and technical solutions for the management of combined sewer sediments. The expected results should facilitate the development of a methodology enabling decision makers to choose the control strategy that is best adapted to the characteristics of the stormwater. Contact: Marie-Christine.Mertz@cereve.enpc.fr or Jean-Claude.Deutsch@cereve.enpc.fr Strasbourg - Modelling with IAWQ Activated Sludge Model 1 (ASM1) is faster, more cost effective and facilitates testing a wider range of situations, compared to field experimentation. However, a prerequisite is to have some confidence in simulations results. A recent Ph.D. thesis deals with this aspect, and more specifically, with simulation of nitrogen removal efficiency of wastewater treatment plants (WWTP) receiving combined sewage influent. Two questions arise: which model input field data should be collected, and is dry-weather calibration valid under wet-weather conditions? It was experimentally found out that influent COD and N fractions, as defined by ASM1, do vary in time (e.g., due to peaks in domestic sewage, or concentrated segments of rain events). It means that experimental influent characterisation might be necessary at time steps as short as a few hours, for accurate dynamic simulation of the activated sludge oxygen demand and denitrification rate. A dry-weather calibration of ASM1 in a detailed 48 hours sampling campaign could indeed be validated by wet-weather data. This suggests that testing different wet-weather scenarios with ASM1 modelling can provide reliable conclusions, provided realistic input data are available. The extreme case of a double pollution load, compared to the average dry-weather situation, was then simulated. It was noted that the WWTP of concern could easily handle doubling influent concentrations, but that inflow doubling may result in an ammonium peak in the effluent. This research was funded by Région Alsace and Lyonnaise des Eaux. Contact: aestrick@engees.u-strasbg.fr Japan (reported by Mitsuyoshi
Zaizen) Countermeasures against a new type of urban inundation - Calamities caused by stormwater occurred in two Japanese cities last June and July. These disasters were caused by quite extraordinary stormwater runoff due to abnormal weather. The two cases of stormwater inundation occurred when high discharges exceeded the capacity of sewer pipes. When excess stormwater entered the buildings basements, residents went down to the basement to inspect the damage and drowned. The Ministry of Construction and local public agencies have begun to research the cause of, and countermeasures against, such calamities. These two disasters were quite horrific, and deeply impressed us, urban storm engineers, regarding the rage of stormwater runoff and the importance of urban drainage planning. Dissemination of models for urban drainage planning - There has been increasing recognition that stormwater runoff models are highly effective for planning Japanese urban drainage systems. Though the rational formula has been used in planning sewer systems so far, the Japan Institute of Wastewater Engineering Technology (JIWET) has been researching runoff models such as SWMM, Mouse and Hydro Works. After the JIWET has established a technical manual for using these models, the number of local public agencies which use these models for planning urban drainage systems has been increasing. It is expected that these models will spread more throughout Japan. Large numbers of foreign visitors - many engineers from foreign countries have been visiting Japanese urban drainage authorities. They took field trips to visit BMPs, runoff control facilities, rainwater utilization facilities and so on. We believe that Japanese technologies for urban drainage are of interest to engineers around the world. Engineers and practitioners from universities and local public agencies, including the Tokyo Metropolitan Government, have been extremely busy taking care of the visitors, but feel happy to exchange information with foreign engineers. Malaysia (reported by Wan
Mokhtar Nawang; pwmnawan@tm.net.my Urban Stormwater Manual for Malaysia - currently, the Malaysian Government, through its Department of Irrigation and Drainage (DID), is undertaking a major revamp of urban drainage practice, by moving from the rapid disposal concept to the stormwater control/ecological concept. Our group is now working for the DID on the preparation of the Urban Stormwater Management Manual for Malaysia. The manual is expected to be launched and released for use in mid 2000. It consists of about 40 chapters (more than 500 pages), ranging from environmental stormwater management principles and strategic master planning to stormwater quantity/quality hydrology and hydraulics, acceptance criteria, legal/institutional issues and quantity control design based on on-site and community detention/retention methods. Other aspects covered are design of various BMP treatment devices such as gross pollutant traps, oil-water separators, filtration, infiltration, and biofiltration facilities, and constructed ponds/wetlands. Stormwater pollution control during construction and source/nonstructural controls are also addressed. To some extent, design guidance for runoff conveyance facilities is provided together with stormwater management for special environments, such as hilly and tidal areas. The manual preparation involves input from international reviewers, B. Urbonas, L. Roesner, J. Marsalek and B. Phillips. Other Activities - our firm has been also entrusted by the Malaysia Government to prepare a Stormwater Management Masterplan for the City of Ipoh, as a pilot case to be undertaken in parallel with the Stormwater Manual. This Masterplan should be completed in mid 2000. Stormwater research activities in Malaysia are carried out mainly by a group from the University of Science, Malaysia. They are now implementing stormwater control/quality BMPs on their university campus. 8ICUSD Sydney - eight (8) Malaysians attended. It shows a steady increase of Malaysian participation since the Osaka conference in 1990 and it seems that we are most active among developing countries in this field. Slovakia (reported by Dr. D. Sztruhar, Department of Sanitary Engineering, Slovak Technical University, Bratislava, sztruhar@svf.stuba.sk A three-year EU Tempus-Phare project dealing with Continuing Education in Water Quality Management has been completed on August 31, 1999. The project consortium was formed by the Department of Sanitary Engineering, Department of Environmental Sciences and Department of Economics of the Slovak Technical University in Bratislava, Slovakia, Department of Cybernetics and Artificial Intelligence of Technical University of Kosice, Slovakia, Department of Hydraulics and Environmental Engineering of the University of Pavia, Italy, Danish Hydraulic Institute, Horsholm, Denmark, and Compagnie Generale des Eaux, Paris, France. The total award for a three-year period from 1.8.1996 till 31.8.1999 was 388 530 ECU/EUR. The final goal of the project was to develop a viable continuing education program in water quality management for graduate personnel of Water Boards, water managers of industrial enterprises, professionals of civil/environmental firms, personnel of local and central government, etc. This goal has been achieved via organisation of a series of nine post-graduate courses covering water treatment and supply, urban drainage and stormwater management, waste water treatment and sludge management, waste management and financial management. The courses were supported by software (MIKE NET for water distribution network modelling, MOUSE, S.O.C.S and MIKE for urban drainage and receiving water processes modelling, ASIM for waste water treatment processes modelling and HELP for seepage modelling from landfills), technical literature, new computers and audiovisual equipment, all purchased from project funds. Over 300 participants attended the courses and it is planned that they will be run every second year in the future. Research on a CSO monitoring program has been completed in cooperation with the Water Research Institute in Bratislava, Slovakia. The three-year program aimed to map (first time in Slovakia) the existing CSO facilities in settlements with popupation greater than 30,000. In the second phase, wet-weather water quality sampling was accomplished in several cities focusing on the evaluation of pollution of receiving waters. The results show that simple transfer of published sewer pollution data for modelling purposes is not possible, mainly because of the presence of large deposits in sewer systems, which can be mobilised during heavy storms and may contribute to the CSO pollution during the whole event. High differences were in the organic pollution; mean concentrations of SS, nutrients, and heavy metas were similar to the literature data. Finally, sewer modelling with MOUSE was carried out using field data to compute unit loads from experimental catchments. Switzerland and Norway
(reported by Wolfgang Rauch and Wolfgang Schilling) Wolfgang Rauch (EAWAG, Switzerland) and Wolfgang Schilling (Norwegian University of Science and Technology, Trondheim, Norway) have been developing an international advanced university course on Integrated Urban Water Systems (IUWS). With respect to urban water systems, the contemporary environmental engineering education typically focuses on problems concerning the system components rather than on the system itself, and the interactions between components. As a result, students often concentrate on particular details but fail to understand and overlook the full scope of the issue. To overcome these deficiencies in current urban water management university curricula, an international group of 16 academics from 9 European countries decided to develop an advanced university course named INTEGRATED URBAN WATER SYSTEMS (IUWS). The goal of these efforts is to create a modular course that can be simultaneously used at different European universities (locally and through distance learning), and that would be also suitable for continuing education in environmental engineering. The subject of this course is integrated analysis, retrofitting, and operation of existing water supply, drainage, water purification, wastewater treatment, sanitation and water quality management systems. The course contains over 20 interchangeable modules, each of which contains a basic and an advanced section. This concept allows free selection from the set of modules and enables each teacher to establish a course tailored for specific needs. The course level will be advanced in the sense that it will preferably be taught after basic courses on engineering hydraulics and sanitary engineering. The overall learning goal is to get a comprehensive overview of the total urban water and pollutant cycles with emphasis on engineering problem solving and the modelling of dynamic processes. The course is still under development and will be tested for the first time during a Junior Scientist Workshop in the Czech Republic in the spring of 2000, and will become operational in the fall of 2000. Doctoral students and other junior scientists and engineers, who are interested in participating in the spring 2000 workshop should contact Wolfgang Rauch or Wolfgang Schilling wolfgang.Schilling@bygg.ntnu.no South Africa (reported
by Prof. D. Stephenson) United Kingdom United States (reported
by Prof. L. Roesner) Integrated Modelling User Group (IMUG) Conference: Towards a Common European Procedure for Integrated Waste Water Planning and Management, Prague, Czech Republic, April 12-14, 2000. Details can be found below or on the Internet www.hydroinform.com/IMUG, or from Evzen Zeman e.zeman@hydroinform.com The Integrated Modelling User Group, IMUG, is a forum for discussion among users of waste water planning and management tools. When IMUG goes to Central Europe, choosing Prague as the venue for IMUG 2000, the purpose is to strengthen contacts in the reunified Europe. In order to secure the continuation of IMUG and its purpose, and to facilitate the exchange and dissemination of information, representatives from the national user groups have formed the IMUG committee. More information about IMUG and IMUG 2000 can be found on www.imug.com Purpose of IMUG 2000 - in the beginning of the new Millennium there is a need to develop a Common European Procedure for integrated Waste Water Planning and Management. In order to establish a common approach, the regulators must be coordinated, and the tools and procedures must be in place, with users aware of the future direction. There are also several countries in Central and Eastern Europe, that can benefit from the experience of others in order to avoid mistakes. The main purpose of IMUG 2000 is to bring users together to ensure that the practitioners can influence future policies, procedures and tool developments. In the tradition of already established national user group meetings, IMUG 2000 is first and foremost a meeting place for practitioners where the term "meeting" is more proper than "conference". Themes and Program of IMUG 2000 - apart from the presentation and discussion of future policies, procedures and tool developments, the programme of IMUG 2000 will focus on invited "good examples" of practical applications from real life situations around Europe. Major focus is sewerage (quantity and quality) applications with associated areas that support the integration into an overall urban drainage policy. Approximately 20 papers and key note addresses will be presented during the two-day conference and workshops. Deadline for paper abstracts and/or theme/topic for presentation is 10th December, 1999. Further information can be found at www.hif.cz/imug, and www.hydroinform.com. IWA Congress, Paris, France, July 3-7, 2000. The first congress of IWA; its program will include one or two urban drainage sessions. Details of the congress program can be found on the IWA web site. A tentative program of our two Stormwater Management sessions on Wednesday, July 5, 2000, 0900-1230: Chocat, B. et al., Urban drainage: past present and future of the field. Novotny, V. et al., Risk based urban watershed management under conflicting objectives. Aspegren, H. et al., A radar based rainfall forecast for sewage systems control. Smith, E.H., et al., Simple mass balance approach for assessment of flood control sumps in an urban watershed: case study of heavy metal loading. Ahyerre, M. et al., The erosion of organic solids in combined sewers. Dias, S.P. et al., Small diameter gravity sewers: self-cleansing conditions and aspects of wastewater quality. Bardin, J.-P. et al., The purification performance of infiltration basins fitted with pretreatment facilities: a case study. Tanaka, N. et al., Sulfide production and wastewater quality - investigations in a pilot plant pressure sewer. NATO Advanced Research Workshop on Source Control Measures for Stormwater Runoff, St. Marienthal, Ostritz (near Dresden, Germany), November 2000. For detail, contact: Dr. J. Marsalek, NWRI, Burlington, ON L7R 4A6, Canada, Fax: 001-905-336-4420, e-mail: jiri.marsalek@cciw.ca The Fifth International Workshop on Precipitation in Urban Areas (co-sponsored by IAHS): From Rainfall Measurements to Design and Forecasting Modelling Rainfall, will be held in Pontresina, Switzerland, Dec. 4-7, 2000. Its preparation is well under way, the cost of attendance is estimated at about 800 Swiss francs (includes the room and board). For workshop details, please contact: Prof. Paolo Burlando, Institute of Hydromechanics and Water Resources Management, ETH Zürich, HIL G33.1, ETH- Hönggerberg, CH-8093 Zürich, Switzerland; Ph. +41-1-633 3812 (2429), fax: +41-1-633 1061; e-mail: hydrologie@ihw.baum.ethz.ch, or check the web site: www.baum.ethz.ch/ihw/hydrologie/pontresina.html Interurba II, Lisbon, Portugal, Feb. 19-22, 2001 - a conference brochure is now available. The conference objective is to review views on environmental management and control with respect to physical, chemical and biological processes and interactions including sewers, treatment plants, and receiving waters. Further information is available from the conference chairman, Prof. J.S. Matos jsm@civil.ist.utl.pt UNESCO Symposium on Frontiers in Water Management in Urban Environment, Marseille, France, March 21-23, 2001 (reported by Dr. Alberto Tejada-Guibert). This symposium is organised as part of activities to celebrate the Year of Water. The scientific program will be prepared by UNESCO, with Prof. Cedo Maksimovic’s assistance. A state-of-the art book on integrated water management in urban areas will be written by leading international experts and will be available at the symposium. Additionally, a book with reports on six symposium workshops will be produced. Following the meeting in Sydney, further discussions between UNESCO and IAHS took place re a possible overlap of the UNESCO symposium and a similar workshop at the IAHS Symposium in Maastricht, The Netherlands (2001). An agreement has been reached, under which the IAHS workshop co-convenors, D. Savic and J. Marsalek, will work on the UNESCO event and report on it at the IAHS event. For details contact Dr. Tejada-Guibert ja.tejada-guibert@unesco.org NOVATECH, May 14-16, 2001 (reported by Bernard Chocat). The 4th international conference on innovative technologies in urban storm drainage organised by GRAIE, Eurydice '92 and the Great Lyon, with the support of the Joint Committee. Themes: Source controls and alternative technologies for urban storm drainage, Control strategy for wet-weather pollution from combined sewer systems, New design and management tools, Data acquisition and instrumentation, Effects of urban systems on receiving waters' ecology and innovative technologies and practices to mitigate them, Real-time control of urban drainage systems, Sewer systems and physical processes under wet-weather conditions, and Technology exchange, transfer and training for developing countries. A call for papers will be issued before the end of 1999. Deadline for abstract submission: May 1st, 2000, paper submissions, by January 30, 2001. For further information, contact Elodie Brelot: Graie@urgc-hu.insa-lyon.fr UDM 2001, Orlando, Florida, USA, May 20-24, 2001. The UDM Symposium will be held as part of the World Water Resources & Environmental Resources Congress. Program topics - modelling of combined and sanitary sewers, surface drainage quantity and quality, water recycling and resources recovery, integrated modelling, watershed assessment and management, data needs, quality, reliability and availability, generic modelling, and education, training and transfer. Abstracts should be submitted in triplicate (depending on your residence, US or international, respectively) to either Dr. R. Brashear (Camp Dresser & McKee, 8140 Walnut Hill Lane, Suite 1000, Dallas, TX 75231, Fax 1-214-987-2017), or Prof. C. Maksimovic, Imperial College, Dept. Civil and Environ. Engineering, Imperial College Road, London SW7 2BU, UK, Fax: 44 20 7225-2716. For information, contact Prof. C. Maksimovic in London, UK c.maksimovic@ic.ac.uk IAHR Congress in Beijing, 2001 - urban drainage was not included as one of the major themes. For information, check the IAHR web site http://www.iahr.org/ and the conference web site: http://www.2001iahr.iwhr.com The 9th ICUSD (in 2002) preparations are progressing well, as reported by Wayne Huber. The conference format will be similar to that of the earlier conferences in this series. This was also reflected in the conference brochures distributed in Sydney at the 8th ICUSD. Dr. Huber expects large North American attendance, with about 500 attendees. There are many drainage-related activities going on in the US Northwest, connected to the impacts on fisheries. He expects to use Web registration. The conference hotel will cost about $140 (US)/night. 10th ICUD in 2005 - not awarded yet, calls for proposals should be submitted to Jiri Marsalek by Feb. 29, 2000. This call was announced twice at the Sydney conference, in the opening and closing sessions. Simple proposal specs are available from Jiri. The proposals received will be evaluated in the spring of 2000 and voted on by the JC members. Maria do Ceu Almeida, Pollutant Transformation Processes in Sewers under Aerobic Dry Weather Flow Conditions. PhD Thesis, Imperial College, University of London Urban wastewater characteristics are altered during transportation through sewers as a result of biochemical processes. Quantification of these changes is relevant to predict inflow loads to wastewater treatment plants, to calculate pollutant emissions from urban drainage systems (CSOs) and to ascertain any in-sewer treatment effect. Improved knowledge of in-sewer processes potentially leads to changes in the design, analysis and management of urban wastewater systems. The aim of this thesis is to contribute to the understanding, description and assessment of mechanisms involved in the transport of pollutants in sewers, by combining experimental investigations with model development. The focus is restricted to dry weather flow processes occurring either in sanitary or in combined sewers, under aerobic conditions and free surface flows. Model fit was found to be good for the COD fractions and ammonia but poorer for dissolved oxygen. The latter was found to be the key variable and very sensitive to small variations in parameter values. The relative importance of dispersion and transformation processes for pollutant concentrations was evaluated. Further applications and developments of the model are discussed.
The thesis has been conceived on the fact that there is a big gap between the needs for reliable modelling of urban flooding processes caused by storm runoff and the capabilities of the contemporary software packages to adequately tackle this problem. The surface runoff parts of most of the contemporary computer packages are either based on the outdated concepts of the rational formula, time of concentration and similar ideas which cannot represent the dynamics of runoff processes correctly, or on a physically incorrect concept of artificial storage (reservoir) above manholes in which water is stored during the period of surcharged flow in storm sewers. However, flow in sewer networks can be modelled reliably with contemporary tools, providing that the interaction of the correctly modelled processes on catchment surface is ensured. The new generation of models in this field will need much better information on spatial distribution of catchment characteristics such as land use and topography and at much finer spatial resolution than it was used so far. The aim of the thesis is to contribute to understanding the data needs, data processing techniques, data accuracy, aging and degradation through transformation and to develop a hydroinformatics tool (model) that improves the data preparation phase and matches hydrodynamic models. The hydroinformatics tool consists of components, layers with input data and newly created information, programme modules for surface flow analysis and sub-catchment delineation, as well as modules for calculation of parameters used in some contemporary models. The procedure developed in the thesis has been tested against several full scale cases, and the experience gained can be used in further phases of model development. A concept of a new computational model with improved linkage between the surface and pipe flow components has been developed. Instead of strict separation of the two flow routes, the concept of ‘dual drainage’ is adopted in which the full interactive (two-way) linkage between the two components is provided. The informatic system enables tracking surface runoff from the flooded area downstream to the nearest non-surcharged inlet or retention basin or until it flows out of the catchment.
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