Initial conditions of urban permeable surfaces in rainfall-runoff models using Horton’s infiltration

Abstract Infiltration is a key process controlling runoff, but varies depending on antecedent conditions. This study provides estimates on initial conditions for urban permeable surfaces via continuous simulation of the infiltration capacity using historical rain data. An analysis of historical rainfall records show that accumulated rainfall prior to large rain events does not depend on the return period of the event. Using an infiltration-runoff model we found that for a typical large rain storm, antecedent conditions in general lead to reduced infiltration capacity both for sandy and clayey soils and that there is substantial runoff for return periods above 1–10 years.</jats:p

Evaluating catchment response to artificial rainfall from four weather generators for present and future climate

Abstract The technical lifetime of urban water infrastructure has a duration where climate change has to be considered when alterations to the system are planned. Also, models for urban water management are reaching a very high complexity level with, for example, decentralized stormwater control measures being included. These systems have to be evaluated under as close-to-real conditions as possible. Long term statistics (LTS) modelling with observational data is the most close-to-real solution for present climate conditions, but for future climate conditions artificial rainfall time series from weather generators (WGs) have to be used. In this study, we ran LTS simulations with four different WG products for both present and future conditions on two different catchments. For the present conditions, all WG products result in realistic catchment responses when it comes to the number of full flowing pipes and the number and volume of combined sewer overflows (CSOs). For future conditions, the differences in the WGs representation of the expectations to climate change is evident. Nonetheless, all future results indicate that the catchments will have to handle more events that utilize the full capacity of the drainage systems. Generally, WG products are relevant to use in planning of future changes to sewer systems.</jats:p

Tools and data services registry: a community effort to document bioinformatics resources

Life sciences are yielding huge data sets that underpin scientific discoveries fundamental to improvement in human health, agriculture and the environment. In support of these discoveries, a plethora of databases and tools are deployed, in technically complex and diverse implementations, across a spectrum of scientific disciplines. The corpus of documentation of these resources is fragmented across the Web, with much redundancy, and has lacked a common standard of information. The outcome is that scientists must often struggle to find, understand, compare and use the best resources for the task at hand. Here we present a community-driven curation effort, supported by ELIXIR—the European infrastructure for biological information—that aspires to a comprehensive and consistent registry of information about bioinformatics resources. The sustainable upkeep of this Tools and Data Services Registry is assured by a curation effort driven by and tailored to local needs, and shared amongst a network of engaged partners. As of November 2015, the registry includes 1785 resources, with depositions from 126 individual registrations including 52 institutional providers and 74 individuals. With community support, the registry can become a standard for dissemination of information about bioinformatics resources: we welcome everyone to join us in this common endeavour. The registry is freely available at https://bio.tools

SAHM - Simplification of one-dimensional hydraulic networks by automated processes evaluated on 1D/2D deterministic flood models

Evaluation of pluvial flood risk is often based on computations using 1D/2D urban flood models. However, guidelines on choice of model complexity are missing, especially for one-dimensional (1D) network models. This study presents a new automatic approach for simplification of 1D hydraulic networks (SAHM) using trimming and merging techniques, with performance evaluated in a 1D/2D case study. Decreasing the number of elements in the 1D model by 66% yielded a 35% decrease in computation time of the coupled 1D/2D simulation. The simplifications increased flow in some downstream branches and removing nodes eliminated connection to some areas. This promoted errors in two-dimensional (2D) flood results with changes in spatial location of flooding in the reduced 1D/2D models. Applying delayed rain inputs to compensate for changes in travel time and preserving network volume by expanding node diameters did not improve overall results. Investigations on the expected annual damages (EAD) showed that differences in EAD are smaller than deviations in the simulated flooded areas, suggesting that spatial changes are limited to local displacements. Probably, minor improvements of the simplification procedure will further improve results of the reduced models.</jats:p