Browsing by Author "Piro, Patrizia"

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    Experimental study and qualitative and quantitative modelling of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS)
    (2013-11-27) Mancuso, Antonello; Macchione, Francesco; Piro, Patrizia; Carbone, :Marco; Laucelli, Daniele B
    Climate changes have become always more frequent, increasing the interest of researchers in finding the causes and, above all, the structural or non-structural solutions to solve the problem. Economic development together with rapid population growth constantly increase the demand of goods and services. As the same as drought, also precipitation became more intense and frequent, even with more ever short duration. These events for their heavy impact are called ‘extreme rainfall events’. The actual management of urban waters is unsustainable thus, foregoing reasons lead to an imperative need to develop new urban ecosystems, requiring a rethink of traditional development techniques. Traditional urban drainage systems are designed to rapidly collect and convey overland flows to the treatment plants, without taking into account of their qualitative characteristics. In order to reach the aim of the qualitative and quantitative control of stormwater in urban areas, a possible way is the widespread implementation in urban areas of ‘blue-green infrastructure’ that provide an holistic and integrated approach to the problem. They are one step beyond other ‘classic’ sustainable urban drainage measures such as LID (Low Impact Development), SUDS (Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems) or BMPs (Best Management Practices), allowing to emphasize their beneficial effects. Use of BGC as a part of sustainable drainage system concept is a winning approach, that allow managing and treatment of stormwater runoff within urban areas, using practices made of green and blue components. Generally green components are represented by any kind of existing vegetation (floral plants, grass, hedges) while the blue one by lakes, ponds, rivers and canals (natural or artificial). Together, these infrastructures allow to create a network between them at regional scale. The real behaviour of these structures is not yet properly modelled. Most of the software currently used in urban hydrology (SWMM by EPA, Music by eWater CRC, etc…) model in a reasonable way the hydraulic behaviour of infiltration practices (such as bioretention cells, infiltration trenches, vegetated filter strips, porous pavement) using a simple mass balance approach. Generation, inflow and transport of pollutants are, instead, determined by the land use assigned to each subcatchments, namely through buildup and washoff laws describing accumulation and washout by either a mass per unit of subcatchment area or per unit of curb length. This approach completely lack of quality algorithms within LID models that take into account of their quality performances as, for instance, reduction of efficiency due to the clogging effect. The clogging phenomenon, described as the decrease in infiltration rate of the soil due to the reduction in soil porosity and hydraulic conductivity, occurs for the majority within infiltration practices such as bioretention cells, infiltration trenches, vegetated swales and permeable pavers. Precisely these latter practices are one of the easiest to implement into urban environment, being aimed to reduce impervious areas and work as ‘link’ within BGCs networks. From these premises the research in the following thesis is developed, whose main objective is to study the implementation of 'blue and green' elements in urban areas and their effect on pollutant loads reduction. Initially, a study of common errors retrieved within a DTM (Digital Terrain Model) has been faced because, if not corrected, they will affect the overland flow network generation and the subsequent hydraulic modelling. DEMs (Digital Elevation Models) can include both terrain elevation data, which commands flow direction of floodwater, and land cover information, which dictates resistance to floodwater distribution. Very often DTMs originate from a variety of ground observations supplemented by various remote sensing techniques (aerial and satellite measurements, total stations, dGPS, aerial LiDAR, terrestrial laser scanning) thus, containing systematic or random errors to individuate and eliminate. A study were carried out to evaluate how DTM resolutions and presence of building affect overland flow network delineation in the Liguori Channel basin, situated in Cosenza (Italy). To achieve this aim, three different DEMs of the study area, generated from different sources, were used: two contour-based DTMs with contour interval respectively of 30 m (DTM 30) and 20 m (DTM 20), and one LiDAR-based DEM, with horizontal resolution of 1 m (LIDAR DTM). Moreover, for a more in depth analysis, LIDAR DTMb (with buildings) cell size has been down sampled from 1 to 5 meters coarse resolution, in order to evaluate also, how cell size affect ponds delineation. Individuation of likely flood areas (ponds) has been carried out using Arc Hydro Tools developed at Centre for Research in Water Resources at University of Texas at Austin. Research highlighted how the correction of DEM generated from LiDAR data and other sources overlapping the buildings (i.e. retrieved from cadas maps) help to diminish the total accumulated water volume into surface ponds, real or spurious, and also that their number does not depend by the raster cell size, but from the accuracy of the source data. Afterwards, a first attempt of best management practices implementation has been carried out within the Liguori Channel situated in Cosenza, Italy. The overland flow network of a highly urbanized sub area has been enhanced through the addition of a certain percentage of green roof and porous pavements. A series of simulations were carried out, using in input the historical annual rainfall series (between 2008 and 2011) and considering a first scenario without LIDs (reference case) and a second scenario with the new practices implemented. Moreover, the same simulation were repeated in continuous, namely considering a single time series composed by 4 years of precipitations (2008-2011) and taking into account, in addition to the two previous cases, of a third scenario where LIDs may deal with clogging phenomenon. In order to perform the EPA SWMM modelling, a ‘residential’ land use has been defined, characterised by build-up and wash off laws for the considered pollutant (Total Suspended Solids – TSS). As regards the green roof and porous pavement simulation parameters, currently these values has been gathered from literature. Within SWMM, the clogging phenomenon is taken into account through a parameter called ‘clogging factor’ that considers the possible decay of LID performance due to the fine material carried by infiltration waters. The empirical formulation is affected by some parameters such as the number of years it takes to fully clog the system (Yclog), the annual rainfall amount over the site (Pa), the pavement's capture ratio CR (area that contributes runoff to the pavement divided by area of the pavement itself), the system's void ratio (VR), the Impervious Surface Fraction (ISF) and the pavement layer thickness (T). The yearly simulation performed show how the percentage reduction of volumes into the network is around 35% on average each year, the mass of Total Suspended Solids is around 30% on average while the relative concentration undergoes an increment around 15%. The latter result can be explained looking at the SWMM runoff quality algorithm. In fact, currently SWMM takes into account of the reduction of pollutants only in terms of reduction of overland flow, due to the lacking of quality algorithms for LIDs simulation. Consequently, the presence of BMPs increases the amount of stormwater that infiltrates, decreasing runoff, therefore the mass of pollutants reaching the sewer outlet. The lower is the volumes of water reaching the sewer, keeping constant the total mass of pollutant over the catchment, the higher is the average outlet concentrations. The results of the continuous simulation are, also, very interesting. While during the annual simulations the trend of volumes for the scenario ‘LIDs with clogging’ ranges always between the other two cases, without and with LIDs, when the continuous simulation is considered, the volumes of the clogged LID are even higher than the volumes occurring without any BMP implemented. The efficiency tends to decrease during time, from 50% when simulation starts to almost 0% at the end of the second year, continuing then to swing around zero per cent for the remaining part of the simulation. In this case, in fact, during the first two simulated years the trend is similar to what it has been found during the annual simulation, while starting from the third year (January 2010), volumes generated for the case ‘LIDs with clogging’ are equal or even higher than those ones generated when no LIDs are used. Although EPA SWMM results are interesting and indicative of LID operation, they are not very accurate, especially concerning the qualitative simulation of the stormwater management practices. For this reason, later, the research has been focused on improving the qualitative simulation algorithms, with particular attention to porous pavements. Data collected into an experimental laboratory rig of three different and widely used permeable pavement types has been analysed. The investigated systems were: monolithic porous asphalt (PA), modular Hydrapave (HP), and monolithic Permapave (PP). The rig, made of three vertical compartments in which the three porous pavers stratigraphies has been rebuilt, has been subjected to a semi-synthetic hyetograph, made of five different rain intensities (wetting regime) plus several drying periods. From the frequency curve typical of Brisbane (AU), in correspondence of different percentile ranges four flow rates has been chosen (A, B, C, D). In addition, a 1 in 5 year storm of 5 min duration was selected; this represents the typical design storm where the porous pavers are likely to be developed. The accelerated laboratory test allowed to simulate 26 years of operation under Melbourne climate. About the water quality monitoring, an intense sampling regime has been conducted in which samples were collected from inflow and outflow and analysed for Total Suspended Solids (TSS), Total Phosphorus (TP) and Total Nitrogen (TN). Afterwards, a correlation analysis has been performed in order to individuate the key variables affecting the porous pavement functioning. According to these results, the key variables identified to affect the pollutant concentration values were: the cumulative flow every 6, 12 and 24 hours before the sampling time, the cumulative inflow volume in each time step and the cumulative trapped mass. Initially, it has been tried to analyse the phenomenon through the ‘k-C* model’, that is a conceptual model used to simulate the pollutant behaviour through the system, based on a first-order kinetic decay equation. Notwithstanding the wide popularity and tested applicability on various other treatment practices such as sand filters, wetlands, ponds, infiltration systems and vegetated swales, the model did not show satisfying results when applied to porous pavements, especially about heavy metal and total nitrogen modelling. The predictive power of the model has been assessed through the calculation of the Nash–Sutcliffe model efficiency coefficient, widely adopted in the Anglo-Saxon world to evaluate behaviour and performance of the hydrologic models. Nash-Sutcliffe coefficient is an indicator of the model’s ability to predict about the 1:1 line between observed and simulated data. NSE ranges between −∞ and 1.0 (1 inclusive), with NSE = 1 being the optimal value. Values between 0.0 and 1.0 are generally viewed as acceptable levels of performance, whereas values < 0.0 indicates that the mean observed value is a better predictor than the simulated value, which indicates unacceptable performance. Considering this, the concentration data collected has been processed, also taking into account of the correlation analysis previously carried out, which allowed to estimate the concentrations of the main pollutants such as TSS (Total Suspended Solids), TP (Total Phosphorous) and TN (Total Nitrogen) to the output section of the porous pavements. The reliability of the new proposed formulas has been demonstrated both by high values of the Nash- Sutcliffe coefficients, always positive, and also by very low errors (between 10% and 25%) among modelled and measured concentrations
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    Multi-level assessment of the environmental benefits of a permeable pavement: numerical analysis and experimental investigations
    (2018-05-09) Turco, Michele; Furgiuele, Franco; Piro, Patrizia
    The increasing frequency of flooding events in urban catchments related to an increase in impervious surfaces highlights the inadequacy of traditional urban drainage systems whose aim is to rapidly collect and convey overland flows to the treatment plants. Recently, scientific community has focused its attention on Low-impact developments (LIDs) techniques that have proven to be valuable alternatives for stormwater management and hydrological restoration, by reducing stormwater runoff by reproducing natural hydrological processes in urban areas. However, the lack of diffusion of adequate modelling tools represents a barrier in designing and constructing such systems. In general, Permeable Pavement (PP) represents a good solution to solve stormwater management problems both in quantitative and qualitative way. This thesis focused on assessing the hydraulic behaviour and water quality performance of permeable pavements based on laboratory experiments and developing a modelling approach for the water flow in order to assisting engineers and researchers in the design of these systems. In this way, an adequate hydrological description of water flow in the pavement system relies heavily on the knowledge of the unsaturated hydraulic properties of the construction materials. Although several modelling tools and many laboratory methods already exist in the literature to determine the hydraulic properties of soils, the importance of an accurate description of hydraulic properties of materials used in the permeable pavement, is increasingly recognized in the fields of urban hydrology. Thus, the aim of this study is to propose techniques/procedures on how to interpret water flow through the structural system using the HYDRUS model. The overall analysis includes experimental and mathematical procedures for model calibration and validation to assess the suitability of the HYDRUS-2D model to interpret the hydraulic behaviour of a lab-scale permeable pavement system. The system consists of three porous materials: a wear layer of porous concrete blocks, a bedding layers of fine gravel, and a sub-base layer of coarse gravel. The water regime in this system, i.e. outflow at the bottom and water contents in the middle of the bedding layer, was monitored during ten irrigation events of various durations and intensities. The hydraulic properties of porous concrete blocks and fine gravel described by the van Genuchten functions were measured using the clay tank and the multistep outflow experiments, respectively. Coarse gravel properties were set at literature values. In addition, some of the parameters (Ks of the concrete blocks layer, and α, n and Ks of the bedding layer) were optimized with the HYDRUS-2D model from water fluxes and soil water contents measured during irrigation events. The measured and modelled hydrographs were compared using the Nash-Sutcliffe efficiency (NSE) index (varied between 0.95 and 0.99) while the coefficient of determination R2 was used to assess the measured water content versus the modelled water content in the bedding layer (R2= 0.81÷0.87). The parameters were validated using the remaining sets of measurements resulting in NSE values greater than 0.90 (0.91÷0.99) and R2 between 0.63 and 0.91. Results have confirmed the applicability of HYDRUS-2D to describe correctly the hydraulic behaviour of the lab-scale system. Water quality performance aimed to improve the knowledge of the system to remove heavy metals (Copper and Zinc) from stormwater runoff. It was assessed by using batch and contaminant flow experiments. Batch experiments were conducted on each construction material of the PP and highlighted that, among the pavement materials tested, only concrete blocks had the potential to adsorb the heavy metals investigated. Results shown that the adsorption capacity of the porous concrete is higher in adsorbing Cu (70% ÷ 90%) than Zn (69% ÷ 75%). Flow contaminant experiment were performed under different inflow concentrations. Results show that removal rates of Cu and Zn of the lab-scale pavements range from 85% to 92% and from 65% to 82%, respectively
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    On the use of mechanistic modeling for the numerical analysis of low impact developments techniques
    (2017-06-16) Brunetti, Giuseppe; Furgiuele, Franco; Piro, Patrizia
    The increasing frequency of flooding events in urban catchments related to an increase in impervious surfaces highlights the inadequacy of traditional urban drainage systems. Low-impact developments (LIDs) techniques have proven to be valuable alternatives for stormwater management and hydrological restoration, by reducing stormwater runoff and increasing the infiltration and evapotranspiration capacity of urban areas. However, the lack of diffusion of adequate modelling tools represents a barrier in designing and constructing such systems. Mechanistic models are reliable and accurate tools for analysis of the hydrologic behaviour of LIDs, yet only a few studies provide a comprehensive numerical analysis of the hydrological processes involved and test their model predictions against field-scale data. Moreover, their widespread use among urban hydrologists suffers from some limitations, namely: complexity, model calibration and computational cost. This suggest that more research is needed to address these issues and examine the applicability of this kind of models. Thus, the main aim of this thesis was to investigate the benefits and the limitations in the use of mechanistic modelling for LIDs analysis. In this view, the mechanistic modelling approach has been used to simulate the hydraulic/hydrologic behaviour of three different LIDs installed at the University of Calabria: an extensive green roof, a permeable pavement and a stormwater filter. Each case study was used to examine a particular modelling aspect. The morphological and hydrological complexity of the green roof required the use of a three-dimensional mechanistic model, which was validated against experimental data with satisfactory results. The measured soil hydraulic properties of the soil substrate highlighted important characteristics, accounted in the simulation. The validated model was used to carry out a hydrological analysis of the green roof and its hydrological performance during the entire simulated period as well as during single precipitation events. Conversely, a one-dimensional mechanistic model was used to simulate the hydraulic behaviour of a permeable pavement, whose parameters were calibrated against experimental data. A Global Sensitivity Analysis (GSA) followed by a Monte Carlo filtering highlighted the influence of the wear layer on the hydraulic behaviour of the pavement and identified the ranges of parameters generating behavioural solutions in the optimization framework. Reduced ranges were then used in the calibration procedure conducted with the metaheuristic Particle swarm optimization (PSO) algorithm for the estimation of hydraulic parameters. The calibrated model was then validated against an independent set of data with good results. Finally, to address the issue of computational cost, the surrogate-based modelling technique has been applied to calibrate a two-dimensional mechanistic model used to simulate the hydraulic behaviour of a stormwater filter. The kriging technique was utilized to approximate the deterministic response of the mechanistic model. The validated kriging model was first used to carry out a Global Sensitivity Analysis of the unknown soil hydraulic parameters of the filter layer. Next, the Particle Swarm Optimization algorithm was used to estimate their values. Finally, the calibrated model was validated against an independent set of measured outflows with optimal results. Results of the present thesis confirmed the reliability of mechanistic models for LIDs analysis, and gave a new contribution towards a much broader diffusion of such modelling tools.
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    Soluzioni tecnologiche di idraulica urbana sostenibile per la riduzione di carico inquinante: indagini di laboratorio e installazione sul campo
    (2012-10-30) Penna, Nadia; Macchione, Francesco; Piro, Patrizia; Sole, Aurelia; Giustolisi, Orazio
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    Urban sewer flooding:analysis of the behavior of drainage systems during extreme rain events
    (2011) Tomei, Giovanni; Piro, Patrizia; Copertino, Vito; Maksimovic, Cedo; Macchione, Francesco
    Currently cities and communities are experiencing ever growing problems related to urban pluvial flooding. This is due primarily to inefficient drainage inlets and overloaded sewer systems. In fact, existing drainage systems rapidly reach their maximum capacity and tend to work pressurized even in the case of medium-entity storms. Damage and losses caused by flood events in urban areas, primarily life and economic losses and traffic disruption, can be significant. Moreover, this situation is destined to worsen in the immediate future due to the fervent urbanization process and the ongoing climate changes. This research is therefore aimed at investigating this type of event, because to guarantee an efficient working of the drainage systems is a prerequisite in modern societies. Specifically the broader objective of the study is to contribute to an improvement of urban flood management by enhancing urban drainage modeling and storm motion forecasting. In order to achieve such scope the following detailed tasks were performed: 1. Investigation of the various LiDAR Digital Terrain Models (DTMs) available for the drainage modeling of a study area. From literature review it is evident that a great effort has been made to improve existing hydraulic models and to develop new ones. Nevertheless, little interest has been devoted to evaluate the effects of the use of different available LiDAR DTMs on hydraulic modeling. The research is therefore motivated by the need to know how LiDAR DTMs with different detail scale (LiDAR DSM first, LiDAR DSM last and LiDAR DTM bare earth with overlapped building) can affect the hydraulic modeling of drainage networks. Every DTM is in fact characterized by a variable presence of non-ground surface features, such as cars, buildings or vegetation, that will influence surely the hydraulic response of the urban catchment differently. Consequently every data set was studied by GIS-based analysis methods, such as calculation of surface depressions, in order to evaluate whether the consideration of all the non-ground features is necessary for hydraulic modeling purposes, or whether the use of a less detailed LiDAR DTM, adequately improved, could be an approachable solution. 2. Analysis of improvements brought by a dual drainage approach in simulating the behavior of a drainage network during extreme rain events, compared to the use of a conventional methodology. Another question that justifies the work carried out by the author and presented in the thesis is related to the need of improving available urban drainage modeling. Most of these models are in fact based on process simplifications that are far removed from reality, such as assuming that when water leaves the sewer it is stored in a virtual reservoir and does not follow the natural flow paths, i.e. the effect of local topography is neglected. This approach provides a very biased image of flooding process. Consequently the research was aimed at quantifying capabilities and limits of two urban drainage modeling with diverse sophistication level. The first one was based on the classical hypothesis according to which the drainage system is composed only of the sewer system, that is to consider that stormwater, once entered the sewer system, can no longer leave this system coming back to the surface. Instead the second one was based on the dual drainage approach, i.e. it was assumed that the urban drainage system was composed of a surface network and the sewer network. The evaluation of the best approach was performed by comparing the water volume distributions in the sewer network and the number of surcharged sewer trunks resulting from hydraulic simulations. Specifically the issues relative to the development of the most complicated model, that is the dual drainage one, were studied in more detail: the influence of buildings and DTM resolution on the surface network definition, and the introduction of criteria to be taken into account for pond filtering parameters were the topics deepened through the use of an innovative methodology, the AOFD tool (Automatic Overland Flow Delineation).3. Study of the potentials of a dense network of rain gauges in forecasting storm movements for flood prevention purposes. This research was performed because, currently, methods for rainfall prediction are mainly based on radar measurements. However rain gauge data are often available whereas radar data are not. Furthermore radar instruments enable the investigation of convective cells motion, whereas rain gauges data allow the analysis of the movement of rainfall patterns recorded on the ground, that is more important for hydraulic modeling. Consequently storm movement parameters, velocity and direction, were derived by analyzing rainfall data trough available storm tracking procedures. The method proposed by Diskin was tested and, in particular, the extent to which the choice of the reference feature in the hyetograph and the location of the recording stations inside the catchment can affect the results of the methodology was studied in detail. The quality of the elaborations was estimated by comparing the results obtained with other physical phenomena which are related to storm movement, such as wind movement data. In particular statistical analysis, based on the computation of the correlation coefficient and root mean square deviation between storm and wind data sets, were performed. With the results from the research presented herein, it is expected that: 1. DTM enhancement methods generate hydraulically corrected DTMs that can potentially lead to improvements in urban pluvial flood modeling. 2. more realistic simulations of the drainage system are performed by developing dual drainage models. In this way engineers could aim at minimizing both the costs of construction of new works and maintenance of existing structures by evaluating systematically the effectiveness of all the possible design solutions. Actually, the use of such a modeling will have to push them to optimize the working conditions of both the surface and sewer networks when evaluating flood control and mitigation measures. 3. rain gauges are considered as valid alternatives in rainfall movement prediction, to be taken into account in areas where radar measurements cannot be obtained yet. In fact the results of the elaborations will demonstrate how such instruments, that are more approachable than radar ones for economical and practical reasons, are very useful in forecasting the movements that future storm events can make in a monitored area. Similar information could be also used in connection with hydraulic models, previously calibrated for the same study area,in order to evaluate in advance the possible flood-prone areas. In addition the analysis of the results, obtained by considering an ever decreasing number of recording stations, will give interesting information to municipalities having limited budget for equipping themselves with an adequate number of such instruments.
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    Vegetated roofs as a low impact development (LID) approach: hydrologic and hydraulic modeling for stormwater runodd mitifation in urban environment
    (2016-02-19) Principato, Francesca; Berardi, Luigi; Bertrand-Krajewski, Jean-Luc; Carbone, Marco; Piro, Patrizia; Macchione, Francesco
    Nei paesi sviluppati, il livello di urbanizzazione è in continuo aumento e dovrebbe raggiungere l’83% nel 2030 (United Nations, 2002; Antrop, 2004). Il notevole incremento della popolazione comporta una continua espansione areale delle città che si traduce nella progressiva cementificazione di aree vegetate sempre più grandi. L’effetto combinato di urbanizzazione (che riduce la disponibilità di spazi naturali e allo stesso tempo modifica la rete di scorrimento superficiale) e cambiamenti climatici (che incrementano la frequenza e l’intensità delle precipitazioni) (Piro et al., 2012) ha comportato una maggiore vulnerabilità delle aree urbane ed uno sconvolgimento del ciclo idrologico naturale. Durante gli eventi di pioggia intensi, i tassi di infiltrazione ed evapotraspirazione si sono notevolmente ridotti, e di conseguenza si è verificato un incremento del volume di deflusso delle acque meteoriche che sovraccarica il sistema di drenaggio urbano (Piro et al., 2012). In un’ottica di sviluppo ambientale sostenibile, nasce quindi l’esigenza di potenziare la rete di deflusso superficiale mediante l’introduzione di soluzioni sostenibili che consentano di rispristinare, per quanto possibile, le condizioni idrologiche che caratterizzavano il bacino prima dello sviluppo urbano (Cannata, 1994). L’insieme di queste tipologie di interventi a basso impatto che, seguendo un approccio ecologicamente basato, consente una gestione delle acque piovane direttamente alla fonte così da prevenire molti problemi che possono accorrere lungo il percorso di trasporto, viene identificato in letteratura con l’acronimo LID (Low Impact Development). Tra queste, la tecnica del verde pensile che protegge, ripristina o imita il ciclo idrologico di pre-sviluppo e, sfruttando gli spazi disponibili sulle coperture a tetto (altrimenti inutilizzate), può essere applicata anche in ambienti urbani densamente edificati, è di particolare interesse ambientale per l’insieme dei benefici che comporta su scala del singolo edificio e del comprensorio urbano circostante (Tillinger, et al., 2006). Diversi studi hanno evidenziato come le coperture vegetate possano avere effetti sulla ritenzione degli eventi di pioggia (DeNardo et al., 2005; VanWoert et al., 2005; Getter et al., 2007; Gregoire and Clausen, 2011), riducendo il volume di deflusso e la portata al colmo (Berntsson, 2010; Palla et al., 2010; Voyde et al., 2010; Stovin et al., 2012) e ritardando il picco di piena (Carter e Rasmussen, 2006; Spolek, 2008). Da queste premesse nasce il seguente lavoro di tesi, che ha riguardato lo studio del Verde pensile come sistema a basso impatto ambientale, per la mitigazione dei deflussi nell’idraulica urbana, focalizzando l’attenzione sulla Modellazione Idrologico-Idraulica: “Vegetated roofs as a Low Impact Development (LID) approach: hydrologic and hydraulic modeling for stormwater runoff mitigation in urban environment”. Il principale obiettivo della ricerca è stato quello di definire, migliorare ed implementare una metodologia per la progettazione dei tetti verdi utilizzando i dati provenienti da diverse aree geografiche (nel caso specifico sono stati analizzati i dati provenienti da due diverse realtà geografiche: Cosenza in Italia e Lione in Francia), al fine di individuare alcuni fattori chiave per la caratterizzazione della risposta di un sistema a verde pensile. Più nello specifico, dopo un’introduzione generale ed una panoramica sui benefici che l’adozione delle LID offre alla gestione delle acque meteoriche in ambiente urbano rispetto ai sistemi convenzionali, nel Capitolo 1 sono stati definiti i principali obiettivi del progetto di ricerca. Tra le soluzioni naturalistiche che operano il controllo della formazione dei deflussi superficiali mediante i processi di ritenzione e detenzione, quella del Verde Pensile viene particolarmente trattata nel Capitolo 2; vengono descritte le componenti stratigrafiche ed illustrati i più importanti effetti benefici conseguibili dall’installazione di coperture vegetate, con particolare attenzione al contributo nella regimazione delle acque meteoriche.Dal momento che la risposta idrologico-idraulica di una copertura vegetata è influenzata da diversi fattori quali le condizioni meteo-climatiche e le caratteristiche costruttive della copertura vegetata, la revisione della letteratura (Capitolo 3) è organizzata in relazione agli obiettivi della ricerca: (1) la prima parte fornisce una panoramica dei modelli per l’analisi del comportamento idraulico dei tetti verdi, visti come strumento di supporto alla gestione quantitativa delle acque di pioggia; (2) nella seconda parte è stata eseguita una ricognizione degli studi scientifici effettuati per analizzare l’influenza dei suddetti parametri sulle prestazioni idrologiche ed idrauliche di una copertura vegetata di tipo estensivo. Tali considerazioni suggeriscono che se il verde pensile deve essere parte delle strategie di gestione delle acque piovane, è fondamentale capire come specifici sistemi di copertura rispondano ad eventi pluviometrici specifici; questo richiede strumenti di modellazione affidabili che consentano di ottimizzare le prestazioni dei sistemi a verde pensile su una vasta gamma di tipi di costruzione e in diverse condizione operative. Come risultato di tali considerazioni, i capitoli 4 e 5 riguardano le sperimentazioni condotte utilizzando due diversi modelli. In particolare il Capitolo 4 indaga l’affidabilità di un modello concettuale di tetto verde, sviluppato congiuntamente dalla Le Prieuré e l’INSA di Lione, per simulare il comportamento di una specifica tecnologia di tetto verde pre-fabbricato (Hydropack® & Stock&Flow®). Il modello si basa sul percorso dell’acqua attraverso quattro serbatoi disposti in serie, ciascuno caratterizzato da uno specifico processo idrologico e/o idraulico rappresentato da equazioni concettuali o semi-dettagliate: Serbatoio di Intercettazione, Substrato, Serbatoio Alveolare ed un Serbatoio di Raccolta. Il modello, adattabile a qualsiasi tipo di copertura attraverso l’attivazione/disattivazione di serbatoi e funzioni opzionali, intende simulare il comportamento dinamico del tetto verde a diversi intervalli di tempo, indagarne l'affidabilità ed ottimizzarne le prestazioni. Il modello è stato testato e calibrato utilizzando un database raccolto su due siti sperimentali, rispettivamente per un anno e nove mesi, misurati al passo temporale di 1 minuto: 1) per l’unità prefabbricata di 1 m2 (Hydropack®) prodotta ed installato a Moisy (Francia) da Le Prieuré, la calibrazione è stata condotta a scala d’evento per valutare il contenuto idrico nel substrato; 2) per il tetto verde a grandezza naturale di 282 m2 presso il Centro Congressi di Lione (Francia),la calibrazione è stata condotta a scala mensile per valutare il deflusso totale in uscita dal tetto verde. Tutte le simulazioni del modello sono state effettuate utilizzando il linguaggio ddi programmazione MatLab. Come indicatori delle performance del modello sono stati utilizzati il criterio di Nash-Sutcliffe (NS) e il Root Mean Squared Error (RMSE). I risultati delle simulazioni effettuate sull’unità Hydropack hanno mostrano che il modello ha una elevata capacità di replicare il comportamento osservato per il contenuto idrico nel substrato durante eventi piovosi, come confermato dagli alti valori di NS (sopra 0,6 per il 78% dei casi, e sopra 0,97 per il 46%) e valori RMSE bassi. I primi risultati hanno inoltre indicato che la risposta del modello è fortemente determinata dal contenuto iniziale di acqua nel substrato (Hs0) che andrà considerato come uno dei parametri chiave del modello quando è usato a scala di evento. Per quanto riguarda le simulazioni mensile effettuate sul tetto verde a scala reale, i primi risultati hanno mostrato una buona capacità del modello di replicare il comportamento osservato per la portata in uscita dal tetto, solo per alcuni eventi; prestazioni inferiori si osservano per alcuni eventi a causa di dubbia affidabilità dei dati o nel caso di eventi con precipitazioni molto piccole. Nel Capitolo 5 viene proposto un modello concettuale (SIGMA DRAIN), sviluppato nel corso del progetto PON01_02543 per simulare il comportamento idraulico della copertura vegetata di tipo estensivo installata nel sito sperimentale dell’Unical. SIGMA DRAIN utilizza, per la simulazione dei fenomeni idrologici e idraulici, il motore di calcolo del software EPA SWMM (Storm Water Management Model), pur essendo completamente svincolato dall’interfaccia utente del software. Il nuovo modello idealizza il tetto verde come un sistema costituito da tre componenti disposte in serie, ognuna caratterizzata da uno specifico processo idrologico-idraulico, corrispondenti ai tre moduli tecnologici principali della copertura: lo strato superficiale è concettualizzato come un sottobacino mentre i successivi strati di terreno e di accumulo sono schematizzati attraverso due serbatoi lineari che descrivono rispettivamente la percolazione attraverso il substrato colturale e il trasporto attraverso lo strato drenante. Un’equazione di bilancio di massa viene applicata a ciascun blocco, tenendo conto dei fenomeni fisici specifici che si verificano in ciascun modulo; il flusso è invece regolato dall’equazione di Richards. Al fine di stimarne l’affidabilità, il modello è stato prima calibrato e poi validato con il software HYDRUS-1D, che modella l’infiltrazione dell’acqua nel sottosuolo; visti i parametri idraulici richiesti dal software, tale operazione ha riguardato essenzialmente lo strato di terreno piuttosto che quello di vegetazione ed accumulo. Osservando i risultati in termini di deflusso dei singoli eventi di pioggia, è possibile constatare che il modello Sigma Drain approssima bene il modello HYDRUS-1D per precipitazioni al di sopra dei 20 mm, mentre per eventi con altezza di pioggia inferiore le performance del modello non risultano soddisfacenti; tale comportamento è attribuibile al fatto che nel modello Sigma Drain, differentemente da HYDRUS-1D, non si tiene conto del contenuto idrico iniziale del substrato. A conferma di ciò, le simulazioni effettuate in continuo, hanno mostrato in media un valore dell’indice di NS pari a 0.8, a dimostrazione che le condizioni idrologicoidrauliche antecedenti l’evento considerato sono rilevanti nella valutazione della risposta del modello. Particolare attenzione è stata riposta all’analisi del coefficiente di deflusso e ai fattori idrologici che sono determinanti nelle performances del tetto quali: la precipitazione, l’intensità e la durata di pioggia, nonché il periodo intra-evento che intercorre tra due eventi indipendenti. A seguito delle simulazioni effettuate con SIGMA DRAIN, dal confronto dei risultati ottenuti in termini di deflusso tra gli eventi di pioggia registrati con passo temporale di 1 minuto sul sito sperimentale dell’Unical e presso Lione, si è evidenziato per entrambi gli scenari un comportamento analogo, stimando un valore soglia delle precipitazioni di 13mm, al di sotto del quale il tetto verde trattiene la quasi totalità dell’evento. Per eventi con altezza di pioggia superiore a 13 mm, è stata rilevata, invece, un coefficiente di deflusso che si attesta in media attorno al 46% e 38% rispettivamente per il set di dati regisrati all’Unical e a Lione; è possibile osservare, inoltre, l’esistenza di una proporzionalità diretta tra precipitazione e deflusso. Per analizzare al meglio l’influenza dei singoli parametri idrologici sull’efficienza idraulica del tetto verde, è stata poi ricavata, con i dati di pioggia dell’Unical, un’equazione statistica sulla base di analisi di regressione lineare multipla, successivamente validata con i dati di Lione, che consenta di avere una prima stima della capacità di ritenzione del tetto verde in funzione della durata dell’evento e dell’altezza di pioggia. In definitiva è possibile osservare che ogni singolo parametro, sia esso idrologico o fisico, apporta un’influenza significativa sulle prestazioni idrauliche di una copertura vegetata. Risulta, dunque, approssimativo valutare l’efficienza di una copertura vegetata mediamente su scala annuale o stagionale, in quanto ogni singolo evento di pioggia, in funzione delle proprie caratteristiche e di quelle della copertura stessa, sarà trattenuto in maniera differente. I risultati ottenuti dalle sperimentazioni hanno evidenziato come la copertura vegetata di tipo estensivo, progettata e realizzata all’Unical, in clima Mediterraneo, presenti un ottima efficienza idraulica anche considerando i dati di pioggia di un’altra realtà come Lione, caratterizzata da un clima Temperato. Infine, nel Capitolo 6 vengono esposte le conclusioni generali sul progetto di ricerca e i possibili sviluppi futuri. Con questo lavoro di tesi, che fornisce indicazioni utili alla realizzazione di una pianificazione urbanistica sostenibile che consenta di attuare una gestione integrata della risorsa idrica, si intende promuovere il verde pensile non solo quale strumento di mitigazione e compensazione ambientale in generale, ma nello specifico quale soluzione di drenaggio urbano sostenibile per il ripristino dei processi fondamentali del ciclo idrologico naturale nell’ambiente urbano.