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Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change and Stormwater Management on the Flow Regime of Urban Streams: Case Studies of Cleveland, Ohio and Denver, Colorado

Hassan, Zia Ul
http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1699538989885847

Abstract Details

2023, PHD, Kent State University, College of Arts and Sciences / Department of Earth Sciences.
Climate change is threatening urban areas, including by exacerbating impacts from stormwater runoff on urban streams. Understanding the uncertainties associated with climate change impacts and the resilience of current adaptation strategies are challenging, but this understanding is the key for effective urban water management. Green infrastructure is commonly used to mitigate the effects of stormwater runoff, and it is considered an important climate adaptation strategy. The hydrologic impacts of green infrastructure are poorly understood at the watershed scale, because most of the decisions relating to stormwater management are not optimized and made on the parcel or neighborhood scale. Therefore, the main aim of this research is to quantify the impacts of climate change under different uncertainties and optimized green infrastructure on the flow regime of urban streams by using numerical modeling approaches, which in turn will be helpful for informing decisions by stormwater managers and policy makers. In this dissertation, I first quantified climate change impacts and compared multiple sources of uncertainty within and between climate and hydrological models for an urban watershed near Cleveland, Ohio. One hundred years continuous streamflow obtained from a distributed hydrological model was divided into historical, initial, mid, and late 21st century shows that there will be an increase in future streamflows with exceedance probabilities of 0.5%-50%. Flood with all return periods will increase through the 21st century for most climate projections and parameter sets. For this watershed, hydrological model parameter uncertainty was large relative to inter-climate model spread, for near term moderate to high flows and for many flood frequencies. Optimizations of bioretention cells, swales, and permeable pavements at 14%, 42% and 70% treatment levels were completed using the simulation-optimization tool OSTRICH-SWMM in two urban watersheds located in Cleveland, Ohio and Denver, Colorado. All three types of green infrastructure were successfully optimized, with a single non-dominated solution identified in each scenario to achieve the specified treatment level. The optimized placement minimized the total flow volume for the largest event in a 5-year period as well as the peak flow. In general, green infrastructure performance was better in Cleveland than Denver, and permeable pavements were more evenly distributed in the study watersheds than the other types of green infrastructure. Finally, I analyzed the effectiveness of optimized green infrastructure scenarios on the flow regime for two cities (Cleveland and Denver) with contrasting climates, using calibrated SWMM models. As the treated area increased, the relationship between precipitation and peak flows and total quick flow volumes was altered, with diminishing effectiveness for large storms and longer return period flows. Flashiness index also decreased with the increase in green infrastructure treatment. When dissimilar climate inputs are used, all types of green infrastructure are still effective in terms of reducing peak flows in both watersheds, but their performance changes substantially. For semi-arid Denver using humid Cleveland-based meteorological inputs, green infrastructure performance declines dramatically, with implications for climate change in areas with intensifying rainfall. In the face of climate change, the uncertainty quantification and comparison approach developed here may be helpful in decision-making and design of engineering infrastructure in urban watersheds. Quantification of hydrological impacts of green infrastructure can be helpful for the policy- and decision-makers for the efficient planning of watershed management, and it also helps in the identification of local needs to mitigate the impacts of increased urbanization and climate change.
Anne Jefferson (Committee Co-Chair)
David Singer (Committee Co-Chair)
Kuldeep Singh (Committee Member)
David Costello (Committee Member)
Aditi Bhaskar (Committee Member)
165 p.
Civil Engineering; Climate Change; Geology; Hydrologic Sciences; Hydrology; Water Resource Management
"climate change; urban hydrology; stormwater management; green infrastructure; floods"

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Citations

  • Hassan, Z. U. (2023). Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change and Stormwater Management on the Flow Regime of Urban Streams: Case Studies of Cleveland, Ohio and Denver, Colorado [Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University]. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1699538989885847

    APA Style (7th edition)

  • Hassan, Zia Ul. Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change and Stormwater Management on the Flow Regime of Urban Streams: Case Studies of Cleveland, Ohio and Denver, Colorado. 2023. Kent State University, Doctoral dissertation. OhioLINK Electronic Theses and Dissertations Center, http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1699538989885847.

    MLA Style (8th edition)

  • Hassan, Zia Ul. "Assessing the Impacts of Climate Change and Stormwater Management on the Flow Regime of Urban Streams: Case Studies of Cleveland, Ohio and Denver, Colorado." Doctoral dissertation, Kent State University, 2023. http://rave.ohiolink.edu/etdc/view?acc_num=kent1699538989885847

    Chicago Manual of Style (17th edition)

kent1699538989885847
244
© 2023, all rights reserved.
This open access ETD is published by Kent State University and OhioLINK.