Rain Induced Pollutant Washing in Urban Areas

One of the major problems in urban areas is the pollution of atmosphere, soil and water. The rain washes and cleanses the air and the land surface and then, as runoff, transports a variety of materials to the nearest receiving water body. The pollution generation in storm runoff is a very complex process. It is an accepted view that a true deterministic model of the complete process cannot be built. However a pure determinist approach can be used to evaluate which parameters have the most significant impact in the formation of the pollutant discharge from an urban catchment. In the present work, considering an idealized simple catchment, by using a phisically based numerical model and a number of different system conditions, we have tried to characterize the sensitivity of the pollution runoff to each of these parameters and to point out the existing correlations among them.