Impact of SWMM Catchment Discretization: Case Study in Syracuse, New York
Publication: Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19, Issue 1
Abstract
This study examined how the level of catchment discretization influenced the model parameterization and output uncertainty of the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) 5.0. Two catchment delineations for a highly urbanized sewershed in Syracuse, New York were developed: (1) the macroscale model containing a minimum required number of subcatchments to retain the original sewer network properties; and (2) the microscale model in which each subcatchment was defined for a unique soil and land-use combination. For both scales, the model parameters were calibrated and the uncertainty of model outputs was quantified using the generalized likelihood uncertainty estimation (GLUE) methodology. Then, calibrated posterior parameter sets were applied at micro- and macroscales individually to a second sewershed, which was also delineated at both micro- and macroscales, to test observed versus simulated flows. The results indicated that the catchment disaggregation level had a great impact on both parameterization and simulation results, and the majority of the parameters were sensitive to the modeling scales. Overall, the posterior parameters calibrated based on the microdelineation resulted in a higher degree of reduction in output uncertainties for both calibrated and validated sewersheds. Hence, it can be argued that the calibrated parameters obtained, based upon the macrodelineation, would result in reduced confidence in simulated runoff for another site unique in its characteristics, whereas the posterior parameters derived from the microdelineation could provide a higher confidence level in terms of parameter transferability for modeling other, particularly ungauged sites.
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Acknowledgments
We gratefully acknowledge the National Science Foundation Award BSC-0948952 for an Urban Long Term Research Area Exploratory project (ULTRA-EX) that supported and inspired this research. We also want to thank the Onondaga County Water and Environment Program and CH2MHILL, Syracuse, for the provision of monitored flow data.
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Information & Authors
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Published In
Journal of Hydrologic Engineering
Volume 19 • Issue 1 • January 2014
Pages: 223 - 234
Copyright
© 2014 American Society of Civil Engineers.
History
Received: Mar 28, 2012
Accepted: Dec 21, 2012
Published online: Dec 26, 2012
Discussion open until: May 26, 2013
Published in print: Jan 1, 2014
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