The Effects of Low Impact Development Practices on Urban Stormwater Management

摘要

Low impact development (LID), which aims at either infiltrating, evapotranspiring or storing water at the source, plays an important role in managing urban rainwater. This paper summarizes the effects of four individual LIDs (i.e., bioretention, green roof, porous pavement, and grass swales) and several combinations of those LID practices on rainfall-runoff management. The survey shows that both individual and combined LIDs are effective in controlling small and medium rainfalls, and the performances are less obvious with increases of the rainfall depths. Hence, the individual or combined LIDs applied with noticeable effects on low or moderate rainfalls might not be useful for heavy rain events which would probably cause urban floods in cities in China. Cities located in different regions show big differences in rainfall characteristics. Rainfall intensity is an even more important factor than rainfall depth that influences performances of LID practices. In the future, more studies should be directed to the effects of LID measures on large storm runoff managements under different rainfall intensity-duration-frequency (IDF), which would be helpful to select suitable LID practices for cities in China.