Evapotranspiration Void Space Accounting Method
Publication: Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 149, Issue 1
Abstract
Quantifying evapotranspiration (ET) and infiltration from vegetated stormwater control measures (SCMs), such as rain gardens, is necessary to physically represent their volume reduction potential. Most states and regulatory entities utilize a design storm for rain garden design in which the rain garden’s capacity is considered using a static volume contribution. The static storage volume approach excludes the dynamic functions of infiltration during an event and ET between events. This work seeks to provide a method to incorporate the function of ET during interevent times into a design storm approach. The suggested method to do this is to estimate the void space recovery due to both ET and gravity drainage. An example is used to demonstrate the method for rain gardens in Pennsylvania where the void space recovery was estimated for 6 and 12 days between events. The void space recovery was estimated using a mathematical model based upon the 1D Richards equation coupled with the ASCE Penman-Monteith model. The mathematical model was validated using data from eight rain garden lysimeters in Villanova, Pennsylvania. This location is in the mid-Atlantic region with a Cfa climate in the Koppen-Geiger classification system. This void space recovery ranged from 15% to 40% (for both ET and gravity drainage) depending on soil type, drainage, rooting depth, crop coefficient and days between events. This void space recovery can be used to calculate a semidynamic recovery based on expected performance using the commonly employed design storm approach.
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Data Availability Statement
All soil and infiltration data generated in the study are available from the corresponding author by request.
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Journal of Irrigation and Drainage Engineering
Volume 149 • Issue 1 • January 2023
Copyright
© 2022 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Oct 11, 2021
Accepted: Sep 19, 2022
Published online: Oct 31, 2022
Published in print: Jan 1, 2023
Discussion open until: Mar 31, 2023
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