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Effect of different MIT rainfall event division methods on volume capture ratio of annual
rainfall based on bioretention assessment
Peng Wanga, Jianlong Wanga,b,*, Zitong Yanga, Kai Lia, Rongting Qiua, Changhe Zhanga and Junqi Lia,b
a
Key Laboratory of Urban Stormwater System and Water Environment (Ministry of Education), Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture, Beijing
100044, China
b
Beijing University of Civil Engineering and Architecture Beijing Sustainable Urban Drainage System Construction and Risk Control Engineering Technology
Research Center, Beijing 100044, China
*Corresponding author. E-mail: wangjianlong@bucea.edu.cn
ABSTRACT
Volume capture ratio of annual rainfall (VCRAR) is the key parameter of low-impact development (LID) facilities design, which is significantly
affected by the rainfall event division method. However, there is no universal agreement on how to determine an optimal division method to
achieve it. A modified minimum inter-event time (MIT) method based on MATLAB software was proposed to find an optimal MIT value. The
result showed that the optimal MIT value in Beijing is 200 min based on the daily rainfall data from 1987 to 2016, and the annual average
rainfall events were 34.2 with an average rainfall depth of 13.7 mm. Taking bioretention facilities as an example, the errors of design
VCRAR under different MIT values were compared based on a Stormwater Management Model (SWMM). The results showed that when
design VCRAR was 50, 55–60, 60–75, 75–80 and .80%, the optimal MIT value for LID facilities design was 60, 120, 200, 360 and
1,440 min, respectively. Therefore, the optimal MIT should be flexibly selected with the changing of design VCRAR, to ensure that LID facilities
meet the design goals.
Key words: assessment, bioretention facilities, minimum inter-event time, SWMM, volume capture ratio of annual rainfall
HIGHLIGHTS
• Combining the MIT with threshold statistical methods based on MATLAB software to obtain an optimal MIT value.
• Comparing the effect of different MIT values on the design VCRAR based on SWMM.
• RER, ERD and MERDR were analyzed under different MIT values.
• The different optimal MIT values of different design VCRARs were obtained in Beijing.
This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution Licence (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0), which permits copying and
redistribution for non-commercial purposes with no derivatives, provided the original work is properly cited (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/).
GRAPHICAL ABSTRACT
1. INTRODUCTION
Rapid urbanization has sharply increased impervious urban surface area, as well as dramatically increased the pollution load
of stormwater runoff (You et al. 2019). Low-impact development (LID) can effectively alleviate stormwater runoff pollution
(Shrestha et al. 2018), and the volume capture ratio of annual rainfall (VCRAR) is one of its critical design parameters. Design
VCRAR is affected by facilities operation conditions, rainfall depth, and rainfall event distribution and statistical analysis
which is often based on more than 30 years of continuous rainfall events except for those rainfall depths less than 2 mm. Rain-
fall event distribution characteristics can be determined when rainfall events are divided by the minimum inter-event time
(MIT) method. Meanwhile, rainfall event division methods will greatly affect the rainfall depth of design VCRAR (Yang
et al. 2020). MIT often draws from hydrological analysis methods or selected from empirical parameters for rainfall
events, but the eigenvalue of which is affected by many factors, such as climate, runoff coefficient and hydrological con-
ditions. The urban drainage manual (manual) (China Architecture Publishing & Media Co. Ltd 2017) proposes that
continuous rainfall intensity is not less than 120 min and 0.1 mm/min as the threshold for the division of rainfall events
(MIT ¼ 120 min). However, the rainfall event division method described in the construction guideline of sponge city via
LID (guideline) (Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development 2014) is that rainfall events between two adjacent
20:00 (MIT ¼ 1,440 min) are the same rainfall event. The manual and guideline, therefore, propose different MIT values,
which leads to differences in the design VCRAR.
There are several factors that affect the rainfall events division results via MIT. Dunkerley (2015) analyzed 10 years of rain-
fall data from Fowler Gorge in Australia and quantitatively characterized rainfall intermittency in rainfall events (Intra-event
rainfall intermittency, IERI) and chose eight different MIT values (all , 1,400 min) to divide the rainfall events. Short rainfall
duration events accounted for a large portion of the total rainfall events under the lower MIT values. So, the periods without
rainfall of intra-rainfall events have an important effect on the rainfall event division results. Balme et al. (2006) analyzed 30
years of rainfall data of the Sahel to generalize rainfall event characteristics. Results showed that half of the total rainfall
events’ rainfall duration was ,4 h with rainfall intensity exceeding 35 mm/h, and 85% of annual rainfall depth was produced
by 30–50 major rainfall events annually. Short duration and, high-intensity rainfall will increase the flooding risk. Moreover, a
combination of high slope terrain and the above factors will increase the degree of flooding damage. Al-Qallaf et al. (2020)
studied the impact of extreme rainfall temporal variability in Kuwait and found that extreme rainfall and flash flood risk
increased with a decrease in rainfall events.
There are many studies on the rationality for determining the MIT value. Zhang et al. (2019) adopted an MIT value ranging
from 60 to 1,440 min for rainfall events division and found that rainfall event division, as proposed in the guideline, had a
large error when MIT ¼ 1,440 min. Therefore, they recommended that the MIT value for bioretention facilities design
should be between 60 and 360 min. MIT values have significant influence on the drain time of bioretention facilities. Li
et al. (2019) found that the MIT for a bioretention facility was approximately 0.5 times the facilities drain time, which also
affects the water quality of bioretention facilities. Guo (2020) proposed that facilities like bioretention core designs should
balance residence and drain times, the longer the drain time, the better the water quality. There also have been several studies
on the drain time variation of bioretention facilities under different conditions. Li et al. (2022) found that bioretention drain
time under different experimental conditions varied from 10 to 140 min and dry time varied from 6 to 47 h. There are many
other methods used to determine MIT value, such as through mathematical statistics, for example, Molina-Sanchis et al.
(2016) used regression analysis of runoff time and three rainfall relevant parameters and found that the optimal MIT was
60 min. Other research has focused on the relationship between rainfall events and the MIT value. Dunkerley (2008) sum-
marized the impact of MIT values on rainfall events based on 5 years of rainfall data in an arid area, the results showed
that as rainfall events decreased from 550 to 118, the MIT value increased from 15 to 1,440 min. So, the MIT division
method is greatly affected by rainfall events and the rainfall capture volume of LID facilities.
Above all, there is still a knowledge gap on the division method of rainfall events for different stormwater management
goals, and the MIT between rainfall events has an important impact on the VCRAR. To address these key VCRAR-related
challenges, we (i) modified the MIT method with threshold statistical methods based on MATLAB software to obtain an opti-
mal value that the error between the design VCRAR and operational result was minimum with it; (ii) used the Stormwater
Management Model (SWMM) to compare the effect of different rainfall event division methods on the VCRAR; and (iii) used
bioretention as an example to evaluate the relationship of VCRAR and MIT value and determine the optimal design VCRAR
under different MIT value based on SWMM. Therefore, a more comprehensive division method of rainfall events was inves-
tigated to minimize errors between the design VCRAR and practical operation effect.
2. METHODOLOGY
2.1. Rainfall events division via eigenvalue
2.1.1. MIT effects on rainfall event division
When record rainfall data are divided by different MIT values, the rainfall events distribution can be significantly different.
The rainfall event division trend under different MIT values was shown in Figure 1. When an inappropriate MIT is selected,
the same rainfall event (rainfall event 1, Figure 1) could be divided into two separate rainfall events, or different rainfall events
Figure 1 | Different MIT division conditions (Tsp is the time statistic parameter, min).
could be combined into the same rainfall event (rainfall event 3, Figure 1). If the MIT value is longer, the probability of several
adjacent rainfall events being divided into one rainfall event will increase, which will lead to a decrease in the total rainfall
events, and ultimately, lead to an increase in design VCRAR rainfall depth (Figure 1). For bioretention facilities, there was
little impact on rainfall events when MIT values were .6 h (Zhang et al. 2019). So, it is important to regulate the MIT
value to find an optimal eigenvalue for LID facilities design.
Parameters Meaning
rainfall events, after which total rainfall events tend to be a constant. Hence, the MIT threshold for rainfall events division
is 200 min.
To obtain the impact of MIT on annual rainfall events. Rainfall event ratio (RER) is defined as the ratio of annual rainfall
events to 30-years total rainfall events, and it was used to describe rainfall event inter-annual distribution differences. The
TRE
RER ¼ 100% (1)
P
2016
TRE
i¼1987
where the TRE is the annual total rainfall events from 1987 to 2016, year; i is the sequence of record rainfall data.
To further estimate the impact of MIT on rainfall duration characteristics, we propose the effective rainfall duration (ERD),
which can be defined by the total rainfall duration minus the accumulation time without rainfall in a year.
In order to analyze the impact of MIT on ERD distribution, an effective rainfall duration rate (MERDR) was proposed,
which refers to the ratio of the accumulation of ERD less than the MIT value to the total ERD in 30 years’ rainfall data.
The MERDR can be calculated using the following formula:
P
2016
ERDM
i¼1987
MERDR ¼ 100% (2)
P
2016
ERD
i¼1987
Figure 4 | Rainfall events under different MIT values. (a)1–24 h, 1 h rainfall interval; (b) 60–360 min, 10 min rainfall interval; the boxes in the
figure means the platform of the steady state).
where ERD is the effective rainfall duration, min; ERDM is the ERD less than the selected MIT, the MIT with 60, 120, 200,
360 and 1,440 min were selected; i is the year’s order.
PF w
V¼ (3)
a
where V is the rainfall capture volume of the bioretention facility, m3; a is the ratio of bioretention area to a catchment area
that usually takes 5–10%, which is 5%; P is the design rainfall depth, mm; F is the bioretention area, as the bioretention facility
surface area is 0.25 m2, which means the F to be taken as 5 m2; w is the runoff coefficient, reference to empirical values of
urban comprehensive runoff coefficient, which is 0.65:
(WSP þ WS.P )
VCRAR ¼ 100% (4)
nR
where VCRAR is the volume capture ratio of annual rainfall which is the ratio of controlled rainfall volume to total rainfall
volume, %; n is the total number of years; R is the study region or projection annual average rainfall depth, which is the sum
of daily rainfall depth which greater than 2 mm divided by n, mm; S is the daily rainfall depth of 30 years, mm; WSP is the
sum of daily rainfall depth which less than or equal to P, mm; WS.P is the sum of the sum of rainfall depth, which means the
total number of rainfall events whose rainfall depth greater than P times P, mm.
The larger the design VCRAR, the larger the rainfall capture volume, and the higher the costs for construction. Xi et al.
(2017) found that when VCRAR lies between 70 and 90%, its design rainfall depth is changing more markedly, which
means that the cost–benefit ratio is higher. Thus, a broader VCRAR variation range (from 50 to 95%) was adopted, to deter-
mine the optimal design VCRAR. Then, Formula (3) was used to calculate rainfall capture volume with different MIT values
and VCRAR (Table 2). These rainfall capture volumes were used as the storage capacity basis for calculating reservoir
thickness.
2.1.4.2. Bioretention model calibration and validation. Taking bioretention facilities as an example, design VCRAR
comparisons were processed under different MIT values. Bioretention models based on SWMM were built with different
VCRAR, calibrated via eight typical rainfall events with rainfall duration of 60, 120, 180, 300 and 600 min, rainfall depth
from 57.7 to 118.7 mm and other rainfall information as shown in Figure 5, then validated by one rainfall event. The
SWMM model takes the Horton infiltration to simulate the bioretention facility infiltration process and the calibration
results are shown in Figure 5. The relative errors of the simulated results and the measured data were between 1.63 and
16.55%. When rainfall depth is higher (e.g., rainfall depth is 100 mm), the relative error (RE) is negative, indicating that
the model simulation results are larger.
Table 2 | Simulated rainfall capture volume under different MIT values (m3)
VCRAR/%
MIT/min 50 55 60 65 70 75 80 85 90 95
60 0.052 0.065 0.078 0.091 0.111 0.130 0.163 0.202 0.273 0.377
120 0.059 0.072 0.085 0.104 0.124 0.143 0.182 0.221 0.286 0.403
200 0.065 0.078 0.091 0.111 0.130 0.156 0.189 0.234 0.299 0.410
360 0.072 0.085 0.098 0.117 0.143 0.169 0.202 0.247 0.312 0.449
1,440 0.091 0.111 0.130 0.150 0.176 0.208 0.254 0.299 0.377 0.527
Nash coefficients (NSE) and coefficients of determination (R 2) were used for analyzing bioretention model accuracy, and
calculated using the following formulas:
P
n
(qobs,t qsim,t )2
t¼1
NSE ¼ 1 (5)
Pn
(qobs,t qave,o )2
t¼1
2
P
n
(qobs,t qave,o )(qsim,t qave,s )
t¼1
R2 ¼ (6)
P
n P
n
(qobs,t qave,o )2 (qsim,t qave,s )2
t¼1 t¼1
where qobs,t is the experimental overflow volume, l; qsim,t is the simulation overflow volume, l; qave,t is the average experimen-
tal overflow volume, l; qave,s is the average simulation overflow volume, l.
The Nash–Sutcliffe efficiency coefficient (NSE) was 0.79 which demonstrates a favorable simulation effect, and the coeffi-
cient of determination (R 2) was 0.84. The bioretention model was validated using a rainfall event with a rainfall depth of
75.54 mm and a rainfall duration of 60 min. The experimental total runoff volume was 169.6 l, while the simulated total
runoff volume was 166.9 l, and the RE was 1.62%. So, the bioretention model accuracy is high enough to simulate
VCRAR under different MIT values.
When MIT ¼ 60, 120, 200, 360 and 1,440 min, MERDR was 39.69, 67.21, 74.79, 89.19 and 99.45%, respectively. When MIT
ranged from 60 to 1,440 min, the ratio of ERD less than 200 min decreased from 80.01 to 60.49%, and most of the rainfall
duration was ,200 min. So, the larger the MIT value, the larger the MERDR is.
3.3. VCRAR simulation results via bioretention under different MIT values
3.3.1. Comparison of bioretention VCRAR based on SWMM
Rainfall capture volume was simulated by bioretention model in SWMM when VCRAR ranged from 50 to 95% (Figure 11).
Simulated rainfall capture volume was closest to that of the design value when the MIT ¼ 200 min and design VCRAR was
changing from 60 to 75%. At the same time, simulated VCRAR were 64.99 and 69.10% when MIT ¼ 60 and 200 min, respect-
ively, with the same design VCRAR of 70%, indicating that simulated VCRAR increases with increasing MIT values.
Simulated VCRAR under different MIT values were investigated, and results showed that when design VCRAR is 55%
and MIT ¼ 60 min, the simulation error is the lowest among the different MIT values. The Minimum error also occurred
when design VCRAR was ,50, 55–60, 60–75, 75–80 and .80%, and corresponding MIT was 60,120, 200, 360 and
1,440 min, respectively. Simulated VCRAR was ,50.25, 55.9–59.4, 59.4–69.10, 73.99–79.25 and .83.90%, respectively. The
simulated VCRAR is proximate to the design VCRAR.
1,440 min, and which ranged from 0.21 to 10.81% when design VCRAR increased from 50 to 95%. RE ranged from 6.09 to
0.25% when MIT ¼ 60 min, and from 2.78 to 5.90% when MIT ¼ 360 min, and which indicates that simulated VCRAR fluc-
tuates greatly. Hence, simulated VCRAR’s RE increased with increasing design VCRAR. So, RE is lowest when MIT ¼
200 min. Moreover, the negative RE decreased and the positive RE increased with increasing MIT (Figure 13), which indi-
cates that more simulated VCRAR is larger than the design VCRAR with the MIT increasing. So, the larger the MIT value
adopted for rainfall event division, the larger the rainfall volume captured by the corresponding design VCRAR.
According to the error analysis between simulated and design VCRAR under different MIT values, MIT ¼ 60–360 min had
a lower error, then the design VCRAR was 75–80%. Moreover, RE was larger when MIT ¼ 120 min than MIT ¼ 200 min,
which means there is a significant difference between simulated and design VCRAR. Meanwhile, MIT ¼ 200 min had
lower RE when design VCRAR was between 60 and 75%. The Sponge city academic planning of Beijing (planning) (The
People Government of Beijing Municipality 2017) proposed that the design VCRAR should not be less than 70% in the
whole city. Based on the RE, SE and SD error analysis results, and from conducting a comprehensive analysis of the construc-
tion requirements in the planning, MIT ¼ 200 min can be selected as an optimal rainfall event division threshold in Beijing.
4. CONCLUSIONS
(1) To determine optimal design VCRAR for LID facilities design, a modified rainfall event division method was proposed
from combined MIT and threshold methods which can more accurately determine the optimal MIT according to different
design VCRAR. The optimal MIT value for the Beijing rainfall events division is 200 min.
(2) MIT value has an important effect on the effective rainfall events, RER, ERD and MERDR. The larger the MIT value, the
fewer the rainfall events and the larger the MERDR. An appropriate MIT must be selected to minimize the error between
the design VCRAR and operation effect, and lower bioretention facilities construction costs.
(3) Simulated VCRAR increased with increasing MIT. Furthermore, the larger the MIT adopted for rainfall events division,
the larger the rainfall volume captured than the corresponding design VCRAR. So, it is important to select the proper MIT
value according to its design VCRAR value to improve the efficiency of LID facilities.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
We gratefully acknowledge the support of National Natural Science Foundation of China, grant number 52070013 and the
National Key R & D Program of the Science and Technology of China (research on flooding management techniques in
urban renewal scenarios; No.2021YFC3001402-02).
CONFLICT OF INTEREST
The authors declare there is no conflict.
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First received 25 October 2022; accepted in revised form 17 February 2023. Available online 2 March 2023