Modelación del desempeño hidrológico de techos verdes en ciudades andinas tropicales usando SWMM

Abstract

Introduction.Hydrological modeling is a tool that allows analyzing the effect of different weather conditions on the retention capacity of green roofs in intertropical areas. Objective. The SWMM software’s capacity is assessed in order to represent the hydrological dynamics of green roofs under experimental conditions in the Colombian Andes. Materials and methods. From the results of an extensive monitoring of a green roof module located at the Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá, a sensitivity analysis is conducted and a model is implemented, calibrated and validated. The validated model is used to assess the green roof behavior for simulation with continuous storms and storms with different intensity, frequency and duration. Results. It is demonstrated that the calibrated model is able to satisfactorily reproduce the runoff percolated through the green roof with efficiency indexes close to 0.80 for the Nash-Sutcliffe index (NSE) and less than 6 % for the runoff volume error index (RVE). From simulation results, it was determined that an increase of 30 % in initial saturation can decrease the retention capacity of the green roof between 10 % and 17 % for simulated storms. Conclusion. The SWMM software is capable of representing the dynamics of an experimental green roof in the conditions of the Colombian Andes when it is properly calibrated and validated. Therefore, this model could be a useful tool to perform regional analyzes regarding the implementation of this type of SUDS in intertropical cities.Keywords: green roofs, rain and rainfall regime, runoff, environmental science, mathematical modeling