Construction and Application Analysis

of SWMM Model in Beijing Future

Science Park

Lanshu Jing, Qinghua Luan, Haichao Wang and Xuerui Gao

Abstract Aiming at more frequent urban waterlogging problems in China, a

system of rainwater drainage pipe network by SWMM (Storm Water Management
Model) was constructed, using Beijing Future Science Park as the study area. The
empirical runoff coefficient method is used for model parameter calibration and
validation of “6.23” and “7.21” rainfall runoff processes to build the regional
SWMM model and simulate regional rainfall runoff processes in different return
periods. Comprehensive runoff coefficient and flood peak flow are used as indi-
cators to analyze the above simulation results. In terms of the whole area, both
elements increase with longer design return period, the same as regional flood risk.
In terms of the local area, comprehensive runoff coefficient of sub-catchment area
increases with a longer design return period, but different with various underlying
surface conditions. Among them, the comprehensive runoff coefficient of green land
with better permeability is only 0, while the corresponding value of road area with
permeability of 90% is 0.89, to indicate the differences in spatial distribution of
regional flood risk along with the underlying surface conditions. The above
research results provide the technical support for the construction of regional low

L. Jing
Q. Luan
Hebei University of Engineering College of Water Conservancy
and Hydropower, Handan 056001, Hebei, China
e-mail: 15032021864@163.com
Q. Luan
e-mail: carol97011202@163.com
L. Jing
Q. Luan
Research Center for Water Ecological Civilization & Social Governance
of Hebei Province, Handan 056001, Hebei, China
H. Wang (&)
China International Engineering Consulting Corporation, Beijing 100044, China
e-mail: wanghaichao@ciecc.com.cn
X. Gao
Northwest A&F University, Yangling 712100, Shanxi, China
e-mail: gaoxuerui666@163.com

© Springer International Publishing AG, part of Springer Nature 2019 139

W. Dong et al. (eds.), Sustainable Development of Water Resources
and Hydraulic Engineering in China, Environmental Earth Sciences,
https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-61630-8_12
140 L. Jing et al.

impact development measures (Low Impact Development, LID) and urban flood
warning.

Keywords SWMM Rainstorm flood simulation Integrated flow coefficient


Designing precipitation Beijing Future Science Park

1 Introduction

In recent years, the extreme climate change has led to significant urban waterlog-
ging problems. In the summer of 2016, “to see the sea in the city” occurred in
Nanjing, Wuhan, Handan, Beijing and other regions, not only bringing great
inconvenience to people’s lives and traffic, but also increasing the huge burden for
urban flood control work. Establishment of the urban rain flood management
model, effective storm water management and prediction of urban rainfall runoff
has become one of the urban flood management works. The powerful function and
the characteristics of the free and easy-to-use model, SWMM has been widely used
both at home and abroad by Song et al. [1]. The urban drainage area is selected to
construct the SWMM model by Palla and Gnecco [2] to increase the Low Impact
Development (LID) measures and simulate runoff processes in different return
periods (2, 5 and 10 years). The results show that the LID measure scheme is
effective for heavy rain events with the return period of 10 years, which can
decrease the peak runoff and provide technical support for the evaluation of LID
control performance. Seine in France is selected to build the SWMM model by
Versini et al. [3] and long-series precipitation data are used to analyze the green
roof runoff in different coverage. The results indicate that green roofs can effec-
tively relieve the precipitation at ordinary times, but there is no significant effect on
the heavy rain. If combined with infrastructure, green roofs can make important
contributions to urban water management. In China, frequent flood areas in
Dahongmen, Beijing are selected to build SWMM model by Zhao et al. [4] to
analyze the flood characteristics of different precipitation events and provide
technical support for flood control decision-making for this region. The typical
communities in Beijing are selected to calculate the community drainage effects,
waterlogging and slope flow conditions in different frequencies of design rainstorm
by Cong et al. [5] to simulate storm floods under different conditions and evaluate
the impact, providing important auxiliary measures for urban flood control.
In this paper, SWMM model of Beijing Future Science Park is established to
analyze the rainfall runoff processes in different return periods (10, 20 and 50 years)
and runoff coefficient variation, providing technical support for urban flood control
and the set of LID measures.
Construction and Application Analysis of SWMM Model … 141

2 Model and Methods

2.1 SWMM Model

At present, urban rain flood model has became the important tool and means of rain
flood management, bringing great convenience to the layout of the urban drainage
pipe network, urban flood early warning and the sponge city construction. For
example, Mike urban, Inforworks-CS and SWMM model all can be used for rainfall
runoff simulation. The advantages and disadvantages of SWMM, Inforworks CS
and MOUSE model are analyzed to point out the common existing problems,
introduce the prospects for the development of the urban rain flood model, and
provide the choice basis for current research on the urban rain flood model [6].
SWMM model is developed by the United States Environmental Protection Agency
(USEPA) as the first comprehensive urban runoff analysis model, suitable for the
construction of pipeline hydraulic model, characterized by more selective runoff
generation and concentration model and more intuitive display of dynamic results.
The complete network data of Beijing Future Science Park is used with SWMM
model to build the rainfall runoff model of Beijing Future Science Park, which can
be more intuitive to reflect the runoff processes corresponding to different rainfall
processes. Thus, the model is selected in this paper.

2.2 Runoff Coefficient Method

The Beijing Future Science Park lacks measured runoff data, so the runoff coeffi-
cient method is selected to calibrate model parameters in this paper. The rainfall
runoff model calibration idea of runoff coefficient method is to use runoff coefficient
as the objective function of model parameter calibration, especially to compare the
in priori comprehensive view path coefficient used for rainwater pipe network
design with the runoff coefficient simulated by computer model for model param-
eter calibration [7]. In this paper, the empirical value of urban comprehensive runoff
coefficient in the concise drainage design manual [8] is selected as the standard for
model parameter calibration, see Table 1.

Table 1 The experience value of comprehensive runoff coefficient

Unit type Impervious percentage (%) The integrated runoff coefficient
Central dense habitations >70 0.6–0.8
Dense habitations 50–70 0.5–0.7
Sparse habitations 30–50 0.4–0.6
Very sparse habitations <30 0.3–0.5
142 L. Jing et al.

3 Modeling in the Study Area

3.1 Study Area

In this paper, Beijing Future Science Park is selected for modeling. This region is
the new urban area with a flat terrain, prone to waterlogging, belonging to Wenyu
River Basin with planned total area of about 10 km2. The planning area is bounded
by Wenyu River and Dingsi Road to divide the Beijing Future Science Park into the
south and north district, which is located in the southeast of Xiaotangshan Town
with an area of 2.19 km2. The south district is located in the eastern part of Beiqijia
Town with an area of 4.46 km2. Green space of 3.54 km2 exists between the two
districts. The planned two districts include R&D industry land, the land for the
public service facilities, supplementary residential land, municipal land for traffic
infrastructure and green space. On this basis, according to the rainwater control and
utilization planning, this district can be divided into the north rain zero-discharge
area, the north rain discharge control area, the riverside rain zero-discharge area,
Beijing-Chengde rain zero-drainage area, the southeast rain discharge control area
and the southwest rain discharge control area (Fig. 1). Due to the zero-discharge
area with no runoff, the north rain discharge control area, the southeast rain dis-
charge control area and the southwest rain discharge control area are only gener-
alized in the model.

3.2 Drainage Pipe Network Generalization

Drainage pipe network is generalized based on the south and north pipe network
data, rain well data and river channel section data in Rain and Sewage Discharge
Planning in Beijing Future Science Park (South District), Rain and Sewage
Planning Outside Beijing Future Science Park and Relevant River Regulation
Project Planning in Beijing Future Science Park. After considering pipeline
direction, the rainwater pipe networks in the south and north districts are gener-
alized in a reasonable manner. There are generalized 196 rain nodes and 194 rain
pipelines, including unclosed drainage channels. In addition, according to the flow
direction data in the planning, the water in the southwest rainwater drainage control
area, the southeast rainwater drainage control area and the north rainwater drainage
control area is discharged to Wenyu River Bay, Lutong West Gully and Wenyu
River along the planning river drains, respectively. Three outlets are set, including
one in the downstream outlet of Wenyu River downstream and two in Lutong West
Gully.
The sub-catchment area is divided according to the regional division data in
Controlling Planning Scheme Details of Beijing Future Science Park. The south and
north districts of Beijing Future Science Park are divided into 226 sub-catchment
areas, including the permeable zone with an area of 2.06 km2, accounting for 31%
Construction and Application Analysis of SWMM Model … 143

Changping

Northern rain zero

discharge area
Northern rain
control zone

Riverside rain zero

discharge area

Beijing rain zero

discharge area
Southeast rain
control zone
Southwest rain
control zone

0 200m 600m 1000m

Fig. 1 The distribution of Beijing Future Science Park drainage area

of the total area, and impervious area with an area of 4.59 km2, accounting for 69%
of total area, as shown in Fig. 2a, b.

3.3 Parameter Determination

Model parameters mainly include sub-catchment area parameters, infiltration

parameters and pipe parameters. Except for the characteristic width of
sub-catchment area, the rest of the parameters refer to the user manual of SWMM
model [9].
The sub-catchment area parameters include the characteristic width of
sub-catchment area, depression storage quantity of permeable and impermeable
area, and manning roughness of permeable and impermeable area. Among them,
Eq. 1 is calculated to characteristic width of each sub-catchment area according to
144 L. Jing et al.

(a)

Outlet 1

Legend
Node
Outlet
Link
Outlet 2 and 3

(b)

Legend
Node
Outlet
Link
Subcatchment

Fig. 2 a Drainage pipe and outlet distribution; b Generalized drainage system

Construction and Application Analysis of SWMM Model … 145

Table 2 The final calibration Parameter Value

results
Manning coefficient of the flooded area 0.15
Manning coefficient impermeable area 0.012
Permeable zone depression storage volume 25.4 mm/h
Impervious area depression storage volume 1.27 mm/h
The biggest infiltration rate 25.4 mm/h
Minimum infiltration rate 0.5 mm/h
Closed catheter manning coefficient 0.013
Attenuation coefficient 4
Sunny days period 7d

the calculation method in the literature [10]. After field survey, the regional per-
meable area is a lawn or short grass land, while the impervious area is the cement
surface. Therefore, the depression storage quantity of permeable and impervious
area is selected as 3.81 mm/h and 1.27 mm/h, respectively; and the manning
coefficient of permeable and impervious area is 0.15 and 0.012, respectively.

W ¼ K  Sqrt ðareaÞ ð0:02\K\5Þ; K ¼ 1 ð1Þ

The infiltration parameters include maximum infiltration rate, minimum infil-

tration rate, attenuation constant and sunshine time. According to the survey results
of Rainwater Utilization Planning Scheme of Beijing Future Science Park, the area
belongs to silty clay. Therefore, maximum infiltration rate, minimum infiltration
rate, attenuation constant and sunshine time are selected as 25.4 mm/h, 0.5 mm/h, 4
and 7 d, respectively.
Pipe parameters refer to the manning coefficient of pipe. According to field
investigation and External Rain and Sewage Planning, pipelines belong to asbestos
cement pipes, and the manning coefficient of closed conduit is selected as 0.013.
Due to lack of the measured data for validation, the runoff coefficient method is
used to input the “6.23” rainfall process of the model parameter calibration in this
paper. After adjusting parameters, the comprehensive runoff coefficient corre-
sponding to this regional rainfall event is 0.43, consistent with the empirical value
of comprehensive runoff coefficient in the specifications. Therefore, the final cali-
bration results are shown in Table 2.
According to the results of parameter calibration, the “7.21” measured rainfall
process is input to the model to simulate and obtain the comprehensive runoff
coefficient of this rainfall event as 0.52, consistent with the empirical value of
comprehensive runoff coefficient in the specifications, showing that this model can
be used in the simulation of rainfall runoff process in the region.
146 L. Jing et al.

60
Return period of 10 ys

50 Return period of 20 ys
Return period of 50 ys
precipitation(mm)

40

30

20

10

0
0:05
0:45
1:25
2:05
2:45
3:25
4:05
4:45
5:25
6:05
6:45
7:25
8:05
8:45
9:25
10:05
10:45
11:25
12:05
12:45
13:25
14:05
14:45
15:25
16:05
16:45
17:25
18:05
18:45
19:25
20:05
20:45
21:25
22:05
22:45
23:25
Time (min)

Fig. 3 Different design rainstorm processes in different return period

3.4 Simulation Result Analysis

Due to the basin area of less than 300 km2, the rainfall spatial difference is smaller;
and the rainfall at the design point can be used to replace that on the design surface.
Based on “Beijing Hydrologic Handbook (First Edition of Rainstorm Atlas)” [11]
and “Design Rainstorm Runoff Calculation Standard of Urban Rain System
Planning” [12], the rain-type duration distribution is carried out. According to the
minimum period of 5 min and the total time of 1440 min, the design rainstorm
processes with the hydrological return period of 10, 20 and 50 years are derived
(Fig. 3).
The same rain-type distribution is used for three design rainstorm processes. The
rains lasted for 24 h, and all were the bimodal type. The first and second peak time
occurred at 4 h 20 min and 17 h after precipitation. The double peak and total
cumulative rainfall values in each return period are shown in Table 3.

Table 3 The rainfall statistics under different return period

Return period The depth of first peak The depth of second peak The total rainfall
(yrs) (mm) (mm) (mm)
10 9.63 27.06 391.23
20 11.06 30.06 641.47
50 19.16 51.86 1064.73