Water Quality Modeling to Support the Rouge River Restoration

摘要

The Rouge River National Wet Weather Demonstration Program (Rouge Project) has taken on the challenge of implementing river restoration efforts in a highly urbanized watershed. The 467-square mile Rouge River Watershed is located in southeastern Michigan, and encompasses 48 communities, including the City of Detroit. A significant number of stormwater and combined sewer overflow (CSO) controls are being installed within the watershed to address Rouge River pollution reduction objectives. A suite of hydrologic, sewer system and riverine water quality models have been used to address technical questions that have been asked in Rouge River Watershed planning. This paper presents application of four of the models used by the Rouge Project: 1) TRTSTORM, 2) Watershed Management Model (WMM), 3) Stormwater Management Model (SWMM), and 4) Water Quality Analysis Simulation Program (WASP). The TRTSTORM model predicts annual overflow statistics for various CSO control facilities. A simple pollutant loadings model, the WMM evaluates and communicates the relative impacts of various stormwater controls. SWMM is aiding the development of subwatershed management plans by predicting relative changes in wet weather river response for alternative controls. Finally, the WASP event model predicts the highly transient dissolved oxygen drops caused by CSO discharges, thus the benefits for various levels of CSO control. The Rouge Project models have been and continue to be an important decision-making aid for the project. In addition, the modeling approach used by the Rouge Project, as well as several specific modeling tools, are transferrable to other urban watershed management projects.