Vu, Minh Duc

Project Title

A case study assessing the impact of checkdam on grassed swale performance

Abstract

Urbanization has been considered to be responsible for the increase in peak runoff and total volume of surface water as compared to pre-developed situations. Infrastructural development typically turns pervious areas into impervious ones resulting in the negative influences on the urban water cycle and pressure on drainage systems, e.g. groundwater shortage, subsidence risk or water quality degradation.

Recently more sustainable solutions have been applied. They have shown greater advantages over traditional impervious drainage systems by dealing with the stormwater in a more natural way, i.e. stormwater is not discharged as fast as possible, but retained and gradually discharged to the surrounding soil.

This research will study the quantitative performance of grassed swale in terms of flow attenuation, delaying time and the impact of artificially-built check dam. The swale is located at Riccarton campus, Heriot-Watt University, lies along the local road, accommodates medium level of traffic flux and conveys stormwater from an area of around 500m2.

Supervisors

Dr Scott Arthur and Dr Grant Wright

Contact

Email: mv98@hw.ac.uk