title: Delivery and frequency distributions of combined wastewater collection system wet and dry weather loads.
abstract: Combined wastewater collection systems continue to serve as a common urban conveyance method in urban areas of Europe and older urban areas of the United States. This study uses combined wastewater collection system monitoring data from the urbanizing Liguori catchment and channel in Cosenza (Italy) to illustrate event-based delivery and distribution of conveyed pollutant indices. Motivated by recent European Union (EU) discharge control legislation, this study specifically differentiates the event-based delivery of these indices between dry and wet-weather flows. Although the relatively steady to diurnal-variable delivery phenomena in dry weather flows are known, transport limiting phenomena for wet-weather hydrology and mass delivery typically are not known for the same catchment. Limiting categories of transport for a pollutant phase are generated by variables such as flow volume and duration, stream power, hydrograph parameters, and previous dry hours (PDH). Transport limitations of wet and dry weather events from the 414-ha catchment were analyzed and characterized as limited by mass indices (first-order, first flush transport) or limited by flow (zero-order transport). Results indicated significant concentration differences between mass- and flow-limited events. Higher concentrations were associated with mass-limited events. Frequency distributions of flow, total suspended solids (TSS), chemical oxygen demand (COD), and five-day biochemical oxygen demand (BOD5) were consistently exponential for wet-weather and mass-limited events. In contrast, flow, TSS, and BOD5 concentrations were distributed normally for flow-limited events. Results indicated a reasonable linear relationship between discharged TSS, COD, and BOD5 (biochemical oxygen demand) for Liguori Channel discharges into the Crati River. Wet-weather event transport was predominately mass-limited for TSS, COD, and BOD5.
authors.affiliation: University of Calabria (Italy), Department of Soil Conservation, Arcavacata di Rende (CS), Italy. patrizia.piro@unical.it
authors.forename: Patrizia
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Piro
authors.forename: Marco
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Carbone
authors.forename: John
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Sansalone
mesh_terms: D005062:European Union; D014887:Weather