Improvement of phosphorus removal in bioretention cells using real-time control

ABSTRACT

Retrofitting urban watersheds with wireless sensing and control technologies will enable the next generation of autonomous water systems. While many studies have highlighted the benefits of real-time controlled gray infrastructure, few have evaluated real-time controlled green infrastructure. Motivated by a controlled bioretention site where phosphorus is a major runoff pollutant, phosphorus removal was simulated over a range of influent concentrations and storm conditions for three scenarios: a passive, uncontrolled bioretention cell (baseline), a real-time controlled cell (autonomous upgrade), and a cell with soil amendments (passive upgrade). Results suggest the autonomous upgrade matched the pollutant treatment performance of the baseline scenario in half the spatial footprint. The autonomous upgrade also matched the performance of the passive upgrade; suggesting real-time control may provide a ‘digital’ alternative to existing, passive upgrades. These findings may help site- and cost-constrained stormwater managers meet their water quality goals.

KEYWORDS:

• Bioretention
• green infrastructure
• phosphorus
• real-time control
• water quality

Acknowledgements

The authors wish to thank the staff of the Toledo Zoo for allowing the installation of a real-time controlled valve on their bioretention cell. The authors would also like to thank Meagan Tobias, Travis Dantzer, Cheng Yang, and Gina Kittleson for providing feedback on the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data Availability Statement

The data that support the findings of this study are opening available in bemason/RTC_GreenInfrastructure at http://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.5006910.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the National Science Foundation under Grant #750744; the National Science Foundation under Grant #1737432; and the Great Lakes Protection Fund under Grant #1035.