Real-Time Control of Brooklyn Botanic Garden's Water Features for Combined Sewer Overflow Mitigation and Water Conservation

摘要

Communities are increasingly turning to "smart" water systems to address their often-competing stormwater challenges. This begs the question "how much more effective are smart stormwater systems?". To address this question, we evaluated the smart stormwater system at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden in Brooklyn, New York. The Water Garden Pond at the Brooklyn Botanic Garden uses continuous monitoring and adaptive control (CMAC) to automatically control the timing and rate of discharge from the pond to the downstream combined sewer system. The objectives of this system are combined sewer overflow (CSO) reduction, potable water conservation, and aesthetics. To evaluate the performance of this system, we monitored the actively-controlled Water Garden Pond over a sixteen-month period for discharge to the combined sewer during wet weather. We then simulated the hydraulics of a similar passive stormwater systems, and compared the performance of both systems. Results of this analysis show that the observed active system prevents 91 % of stormwater runoff from discharging during rain events, whereas the simulated passive system prevents 23% of wet weather discharge. By using this type of real-time control, communities are able to enhance their stormwater systems to better meet competing objectives.