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1 © IWA Publishing 2017 Water Science & Technology | in press | 2017

An evaluation of hydrologic modeling performance of EPA

SWMM for bioretentions
Sezar Gülbaz and Cevza Melek Kazezyilmaz-Alhan

ABSTRACT
Sezar Gülbaz
Recent techniques should be investigated in detail to avoid present and future problems of
Cevza Melek Kazezyilmaz-Alhan (corresponding
urbanization like flood, drought and water pollution. Low Impact Development (LID) Best author)
Department of Civil Engineering,
Management Practices (BMPs) such as bioretentions, green roof, rain barrels, vegetative swales, and Istanbul University,
Avcılar Istanbul 34320,
permeable pavements have been implemented to diminish adverse effects of urbanization. In this Turkey
E-mail: meleka@istanbul.edu.tr
study, a hydrological model for Rainfall-Watershed-Bioretention (RWB) system is developed by using
Environmental Protection Agency Storm Water Management Model (EPA SWMM). RWB system is an
experimental setup which consists of an artificial rainfall system, drainage area and four bioretention
columns with different soil mixture. The hydrological modeling capability of SWMM for bioretentions
is presented using the experimental data obtained from the experiments conducted in RWB system
under different rainfall events and for bioretentions with different design. Finally, the modeling
results of SWMM is compared with the results of the Hydrological Model of RWB (HM-RWB) system.
Results show that EPA SWMM performs well in modeling bioretentions whereas the results of
HM-RWB are in better agreement with the experimental data.
Key words | bioretention, EPA SWMM, hydrological model, low impact development (LID), storm
water treatment

INTRODUCTION

The inadequacy of water resources due to the increase in
population, and land use changes due to the vast number
of agricultural and industrial activities reveal the necessity
of best management of water resources. Urbanization
causes an increase in impervious areas, and thus a decrease
in infiltration. As a result of decrease in infiltration, surface
runoff generated over the surface during rainfall increases
which results in flooding events. In addition, with washoff
of pollutants, which build up on surface during dry days,
water quality of surface water becomes poor. Several
methods are investigated to prevent flood and water pol-
lution caused by land use change and urbanization (Davis
; Li et al. ; Gülbaz & Kazezyılmaz-Alhan ).
Low Impact Development (LID) type of Best Management
Practices (BMPs) is among recently developed techniques
(US EPA ).
LID-BMP is an approach of land re-development to
manage storm water runoff and quality in urbanized regions.
There are several LID types such as bioretention facilities,
rain gardens, storm water wetlands, vegetated rooftops,
rain barrels, vegetative swales and permeable pavements
(Sigmon et al. ; Yang et al. ). Preserving and recreat-
ing natural landscape features, minimizing effective
imperviousness to create functional and appealing site drai-
nage, which treats storm water as a resource rather than as a
waste product, are intended by implementing LID. LID has
several benefits beneath improving management of runoff
and flooding such as protecting animal habitats and ecology
of the watershed. Bioretention is a type of LID to diminish
adverse effects of urbanization and is used to decrease
runoff volume and peak flow rate, increase evapotranspira-
tion, infiltration and ground water recharge, and reduce
the pollutant loading in surface and ground water (Hunt
et al. ; Endreny & Collins ; Li & Davis ;
Brown & Hunt ; Sun et al. ; Gülbaz et al. ).
Understanding the hydrological behavior of bioretention is
crucial to efficiently implement it and spread its usage.
Therefore, both experimental and numerical studies on bior-
etentions have got noticed in the last decade. In the
literature, there are studies related to the hydrological and

doi: 10.2166/wst.2017.464
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2 S. Gülbaz & C. M. Kazezyilmaz-Alhan | Hydrologic modeling performance of EPA SWMM for bioretentions
water quality model of the surface flow by using EPA
SWMM (Chang et al. ; Meierdiercks et al. ).
Although, the numerical models of the LID application
and especially, bioretention type of LID, developed by
using EPA SWMM are rather limited, still some studies
exist in the literature (Alfredo et al. ; Tillinghast et al.
; Lee et al. ). For example, Campisano et al. ()
evaluated the capability of SWMM for rain barrel modeling.
Aad et al. () implemented new modeling techniques of
two LID-BMPs, which are rain gardens and rain barrels,
in the EPA SWMM. SWMM is used to simulate pipe net-
work hydraulics for the Beijing Olympic Village residential
area in China incorporating some LID BMP types, such as
porous pavements, green roofs and rainwater cisterns, into
the model by Jia et al. ().
In this study, a hydrological model for Rainfall-Water-
shed-Bioretention (RWB) System is developed to
investigate bioretention type of LID by using EPA SWMM.
RWB System is an experimental set up developed by
Gülbaz & Kazezyılmaz-Alhan (a). RWB System is con-
structed in open space which consists of artificial rainfall
system, drainage area and four bioretention columns with
different soil mixture. Inflow and outflow (drain flow) data
at the entrance and exit of bioretention are measured by
Figure 1 | Schematic of Rainfall-Watershed-Bioretention (RWB) System in 3 Dimension (a), four bioretention columns (b) and schematic of RWB System in 2 Dimension (c) (modified after
Gülbaz & Kazezyılmaz-Alhan 2016).
Water Science & Technology | in press | 2017
using this setup. The columns are modeled using EPA
SWMM. Then, performance of the model is evaluated by
comparing the model results with the experimental data col-
lected in RWB system. Finally, the modeling results of EPA
SWMM is also compared with the results of Hydrological
Model of RWB (HM-RWB) developed by Gülbaz &
Kazezyılmaz-Alhan (b). Results show that EPA
SWMM performs well in modeling bioretentions whereas
the results of HM-RWB are in better agreement with the
experimental data.
MATERIAL AND METHODS
Experimental setup of RWB system
RWB System is constructed at Avcılar Campus of Istanbul
University in Istanbul, Turkey. The system has 40 m2 of drai-
nage area for watershed simulation, 40 rainfall nozzles for
artificial rainfall simulation and 4 bioretention columns.
The system is set up outdoor so that bioretention may also
be tested under natural rainfall. The slope of the area can
change between 0 and 3%. The artificial rainfall system is
constructed 1 m above the drainage area to simulate rainfall
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3 S. Gülbaz & C. M. Kazezyilmaz-Alhan | Hydrologic modeling performance of EPA SWMM for bioretentions Water Science & Technology | in press | 2017

Figure 2 | EPA SWMM model of RWB system.

with different intensities. A water tank with 5 m3 capacity, a Dickinson ; Rossman ). Furthermore, some LID
flow meter, pressure gauge and a pump are used for the arti- types such as bioretention, rain garden, green roof, infiltra-
ficial rainfall system setup. Bioretention columns have tion trench, permeable pavement, rain barrel, vegetative
cylindrical shape with inner diameter of 54 cm and height swale can be modelled in EPA SWMM to simulate the
of 124 cm and are made from polyethylene material. The effects of LID.
schematic of RWB System (a-c) and four bioretention col- There are various hydrologic processes, which are pre-
umns (b) are shown in Figure 1. cipitation, infiltration, percolation, evapotranspiration,
snow melting, overland flow, and drain flow, taken into
Hydrological model of RWB system account in bioretention simulation. The concept of simu-
lation processes for a bioretention is shown in Figure 3 as
HM-RWB is a mathematical model for RWB system which
expresses the hydrological performance of bioretentions.
This hydrological model has two main modules: The first
module is called as Rainfall-Runoff model. Surface runoff
generated over the drainage area is calculated by using kin-
ematic wave theory in this module. Calculated surface
runoff represents the rainfall that reaches the bioretention
columns as inflow. Second module is called as Runoff-Bior-
etention flow model. The flow at the exit of bioretention
system is calculated using this module. An improved version
of Green-Ampt method under unsteady rainfall, which con-
siders the effect of ponding depth on bioretention columns,
is used in this module.

RWB model development with EPA SWMM

EPA SWMM is a watershed hydrological and water quality

model among several other software programs (Huber & Figure 3 | Bioretention modeling principle of EPA SWMM.
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4 S. Gülbaz & C. M. Kazezyilmaz-Alhan | Hydrologic modeling performance of EPA SWMM for bioretentions Water Science & Technology | in press | 2017

an example. As it can be seen in Figure 3, four layers are
defined in bioretention modeling in SWMM. The par-
ameters of the surface layer include berm height, which is
the maximum depth to hold surface water inside the biore-
tention system (mm), vegetation volume fraction, which is
the volume occupied by stems and leaves on the bioreten-
tion surface (as a fraction), S-surface roughness, which is
Manning’s n for overland flow over surface soil cover, and
surface slope, which is the slope of surface layer (as a per-
cent). The parameters of the soil layer include porosity,
which is the volume of pore space relative to total volume
of soil (as a fraction), field capacity, which is the volume
of pore water relative to total volume after the soil has
been allowed to drain fully (as a fraction), wilting point,
which is the volume of pore water relative to total volume
for a well dried soil where only bound water remains (as a
fraction), conductivity, which is the hydraulic conductivity
for the fully saturated soil (mm/hr), conductivity slope,
which is the slope of the curve of log versus soil moisture
content, and suction head, which is the average value of
soil capillary suction along the wetting front (mm). The par-
ameters of the storage layer include thickness, which is
defined as gravel layer thickness (mm), void ratio, which is
defined as the volume of void space relative to the volume
of solids in the layer, seepage rate, which is the rate at
which water seeps into the native soil below the layer
(mm/hr), and clogging factor, which is the properties to
define clog at the bottom of the layer. The parameters of
the drain layer include drain coefficient and drain exponent,
which are used to determine the rate of flow through a drain
as a function of the height of stored water above the drain’s
offset, and drain offset height, which is the height of the
drain line above the bottom of a storage layer (mm) (Ross-
man ; Chui et al. ).
EPA SWMM is employed in modelling the RWB system
to evaluate the hydrological performance of bioretentions.

Table 1 | Properties of surface, soil, storage and drain layers for bioretention columns (Rossman 2010)

Bioretention Column No

Layer Parameters I II III IV

Surface Berm Height (Storage Depth) (mm) 390 350 410 370
Vegetation Volume (Fraction) 0.2 0.2 0.2 0.2
Surface Roughness (Manning’s N) 0.13 0.13 0.13 0.13
Surface Slope (Percent) 0.1 0.1 0.1 0.1
Soil Thickness (mm) 700 740 680 720
Porosity (volume fraction) 0.47 0.46 0.45 0.48
Field Capacity (volume fraction) 0.40 0.40 0.40 0.40
Wilting Point (volume fraction) 0.33 0.33 0.33 0.33
Conductivity (mm/hr) 300 230 380 140
Conductivity Slope 10 10 10 10
Suction Head (mm) 15 17 19 27
Storage Thickness (Height) (mm) 10 10 10 10
Void Ratio (voids/solids) 0.75 0.75 0.75 0.75
Seepage Rate (mm /hr) 0 0 0 0
Clogging Factor 0 0 0 0
Drain Flow Coefficient 40 40 40 40
Flow Exponent 0.5 0.5 0.5 0.5
Offset Height (mm) 13 13 13 13
Bioretention surface area, Abio (m2) 0.23 0.23 0.23 0.23
Initial moisture content, θi (%) 31 41 18 43
Classification Loamy sand Loamy sand sand sandy loam
Sand (% by mass) 70 70 85 55
Vegetative Soil (% by mass) 30 20 15 45
Turf (% by mass) 0 10 0 0
Gravel (kg) 40 40 40 40
Mulch (kg) 3.5 3.5 3.5 3.5
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5 S. Gülbaz & C. M. Kazezyilmaz-Alhan | Hydrologic modeling performance of EPA SWMM for bioretentions
First, the drainage area of RWB system is modeled by defin-
ing slope, area, and width of 38 subareas. 8 m2 of the steel
platform is used to represent the drainage area and intro-
duced into the SWMM. The width and length of the
drainage area is 4 and 2 m, respectively. Main channel,
which collects the surface runoff generated over the drai-
nage area, is introduced into the program by defining the
length, cross sectional area, roughness, and start-end
points of each channel segment. Junctions are defined
between each channel segment. A rain gauge is defined
into the model which allows for definition of variable rain-
fall intensity (i) and rainfall duration (tr). Figure 2 shows
the EPA SWMM model of RWB system which includes
the drainage area and four bioretention columns.
Second, bioretention columns of RWB system are mod-
eled. In order to implement bioretention into the model,
vegetation volume, berm height, surface roughness, surface
slope, soil thickness, porosity, field capacity, wilting point,
conductivity, conductivity slope, suction head, storage thick-
ness, void ratio, seepage rate, clogging factor, and drain
Figure 4 | Measured and calculated (SWMM and HM-RWB) drain flow hydrographs of four bioretention columns under 27.5 mm/h rainfall intensity and 15 min rainfall duration.
Water Science & Technology | in press | 2017
coefficients are defined. These parameters depend on the
surface, soil, storage and drain layers. The values for part
of these parameters are selected within the range given by
EPA SWMM manual whereas the rest of the parameters
such as berm height, soil and storage thicknesses, hydraulic
conductivity, porosity and moisture content are measured
during the experiments (Table 1). In addition, bioretention
modeling principle of EPA SWMM is shown in Figure 3.
The surface runoff generated over the drainage area reaches
the bioretention columns as inflow. The drain flow out of the
bioretention columns shown in Figure 3 is measured in
RWB experimental setup and used to calibrate the EPA
SWMM model.
RESULTS AND DISCUSSION
The calculated drain flow hydrographs obtained by using
SWMM are compared with both measured drain flow
hydrographs at the exit of bioretention columns and
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6 S. Gülbaz & C. M. Kazezyilmaz-Alhan | Hydrologic modeling performance of EPA SWMM for bioretentions
HM-RWB model. 64 distinct simulations are made under
rainfall intensities of 16, 23, 27.5, and 34 mm/h and rain-
fall durations of 15, 20, 25, and 30 minutes for 4
bioretention columns. The drain flow hydrographs
obtained for 27.5 mm/h of rainfall intensity and 15 min-
utes of rainfall duration are presented in Figure 4. This
figure shows the comparison of SWMM simulations with
measured data and HM-RWB simulations for bioretention
columns I-IV. In this figure, the calculated drain flow
hydrographs by SWMM, the calculated drain flow hydro-
graphs by HM-RWB and the measured drain flow
hydrographs are labeled as Q_SWMM, Q_HM-RWB and
Q_measured, respectively. As it can be seen from this
figure, the simulated results with the SWMM model rep-
resent the characteristics of the measured underdrain
bioretention flow reasonably well with a slight underesti-
mate of measured peak flow data. On the other hand,
results of the HM-RWB model capture the peak and the
shape of the measured drain flow hydrograph better than
the EPA SWMM model. In addition, the drain flow
Figure 5 | Measured and calculated (SWMM and HM-RWB) drain flow hydrographs of four bioretention columns under 27.5 mm/h rainfall intensity and 25 min rainfall duration.
Water Science & Technology | in press | 2017
hydrographs obtained for 27.5 mm/h of rainfall intensity
and 25 minutes of rainfall duration and 34 mm/h of rain-
fall intensity and 15 minutes of rainfall duration are
presented in Figures 5 and 6, respectively.
Statistical analyses are conducted to better assess the
goodness of fit of the model. For this purpose, coefficients
of determination for measured and calculated bioretention
drain flow hydrographs under four-rainfall intensity and
four-rainfall duration for four bioretention columns are cal-
culated and presented in Table 2. The coefficient of
determination is defined as the square of the Pearson pro-
duct-moment correlation coefficient, R (Rodgers &
Nicewander 1988). As it can be seen from Table 2 that R2
values for each experiment and the mean of R2 values for
each column for HM-RWB are greater than SWMM
results. Since peak flow rates at the outlet of bioretentions
are important in bioretention design, the absolute percent
error of the models (HM-RWB and SWMM) relative to
experimental results are calculated and given in Table 3.
While mean absolute percent error values for HM-RWB
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7 S. Gülbaz & C. M. Kazezyilmaz-Alhan | Hydrologic modeling performance of EPA SWMM for bioretentions
Figure 6 | Measured and calculated (SWMM and HM-RWB) drain flow hydrographs of four bioretention columns under 34 mm/h rainfall intensity and 15 min rainfall duration.
results are about 5%, they are about 15% for SWMM
results. Thus, HM-RWB results are better than SWMM
results.
Figures 4–6 show the calculated peak drain flow rates
by both using SWMM and HM-RWB. Whereas, the calcu-
lated peak drain flow rates by SWMM stay the same for
different rainfall events and differ only with respect to
different bioretention columns, the ones by HM-RWB
differ both with respect to different rainfall intensity
and duration and bioretention columns. This means
that SWMM only takes into account different soil
characteristics and design of bioretentions when calculat-
ing flow through the bioretention system. On the
other hand, HM-RWB employs an improved version of
Green-Ampt method under unsteady rainfall by incorpor-
ating the effect of ponding depth on bioretention for the
simulation of drain flow at the exit of the bioretention,
which allows for the change of calculated drain flow
rates under different rainfall events. Thus, EPA SWMM
model can be improved by taking into account the
Water Science & Technology | in press | 2017
effect of rainfall intensity and duration on peak drain
flow rates.
CONCLUSIONS
EPA SWMM is a commonly used software for planning,
analysis and design related to storm water runoff, and
other drainage systems in urbanized regions. It is one of
the few programs, which allows for definition of LID
including bioretentions, in urban hydrology and water
quality models. This study investigates the capacity
of SWMM in hydrological modeling of bioretentions.
Performance of the SWMM model is evaluated by compar-
ing the model results with both the experimental data
obtained in RWB system by Gülbaz & Kazezyılmaz-
Alhan (a) and the results of HM-RWB developed by
Gülbaz & Kazezyılmaz-Alhan (b). Results show that
EPA SWMM performs well in modeling bioretentions
whereas the results of HM-RWB are in better agreement
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8 S. Gülbaz & C. M. Kazezyilmaz-Alhan | Hydrologic modeling performance of EPA SWMM for bioretentions Water Science & Technology | in press | 2017

Table 2 | Coefficient of determination (R2) values between experimental data and model results

Coefficient of Determination, R2 for Calculated Bioretention Drain Flow

Column No

I II III IV

i (mm/h) tr (min) SWMM HM-RWB SWMM HM-RWB SWMM HM-RWB SWMM HM-RWB

16 15 0.42 0.76 0.40 0.60 0.50 0.78 0.56 0.75

20 0.77 0.83 0.63 0.70 0.72 0.79 0.66 0.75
25 0.71 0.79 0.48 0.63 0.83 0.84 0.72 0.76
30 0.51 0.57 0.35 0.43 0.73 0.94 0.65 0.67
23 15 0.85 0.86 0.89 0.91 0.74 0.90 0.74 0.82
20 0.82 0.87 0.94 0.95 0.78 0.80 0.72 0.78
25 0.77 0.89 0.87 0.92 0.76 0.85 0.70 0.81
30 0.58 0.87 0.82 0.83 0.69 0.81 0.60 0.75
27.5 15 0.57 0.84 0.69 0.84 0.90 0.84 0.54 0.67
20 0.49 0.85 0.80 0.90 0.71 0.82 0.66 0.92
25 0.72 0.92 0.74 0.90 0.81 0.87 0.82 0.88
30 0.76 0.84 0.82 0.83 0.79 0.87 0.71 0.51
34 15 0.60 0.94 0.67 0.88 0.86 0.90 0.60 0.88
20 0.77 0.90 0.76 0.94 0.84 0.88 0.56 0.85
25 0.59 0.77 0.51 0.81 0.67 0.82 0.62 0.69
30 0.56 0.80 0.61 0.85 0.81 0.86 0.69 0.76
Mean 0.66 0.83 0.69 0.81 0.76 0.85 0.66 0.77

Table 3 | Absolute percent errors for peak outflows of the models (SWMM and HM-RWB) relative to experimental results

Absolute Percent Errors for Calculated (SWMM and HM-RWB) and Measured Bioretention Peak Outflow (%)
Column No

I II III IV

i (mm/h) tr (min) SWMM HM-RWB SWMM HM-RWB SWMM HM-RWB SWMM HM-RWB

16 15 0.44 11.97 6.23 12.54 0.23 13.97 19.25 36.54

20 6.50 4.31 0.19 6.31 8.67 4.39 3.20 18.16
25 9.45 1.06 4.16 1.74 11.18 1.54 5.85 7.79
30 10.64 0.23 7.19 1.45 15.31 3.08 9.50 3.61
23 15 10.15 6.80 5.19 3.92 14.81 7.45 6.67 13.20
20 14.81 1.37 9.57 0.69 16.76 4.99 9.04 10.32
25 16.67 0.80 13.56 5.01 19.52 1.51 14.82 3.32
30 19.01 3.56 14.40 5.87 21.05 0.41 17.44 0.14
27.5 15 16.06 5.10 10.03 9.40 19.07 3.17 14.14 7.73
20 17.86 1.65 13.98 4.60 20.83 0.92 18.69 2.02
25 19.01 0.33 14.81 3.58 22.31 0.96 21.20 1.13
30 19.86 0.61 19.11 1.64 23.73 2.77 23.34 3.81
34 15 18.44 10.99 13.56 8.29 21.26 5.27 21.08 3.53
20 19.58 9.44 14.40 7.24 22.93 3.35 23.88 0.14
25 19.86 9.06 17.98 2.75 24.13 1.84 28.45 6.13
30 20.14 8.68 19.85 0.42 26.43 1.15 30.76 9.16
Mean 14.90 4.75 11.51 4.72 18.01 3.55 16.71 7.92
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9 S. Gülbaz & C. M. Kazezyilmaz-Alhan | Hydrologic modeling performance of EPA SWMM for bioretentions
with the experimental data. Therefore, it is concluded that
EPA SWMM can be used to model bioretention systems,
but there is room for improvement. Moreover, the evalu-
ation of the bioretention model with EPA SWMM using
measured drain flow under bioretention column adds to
the value of this study as the existing studies involve
only measured surface runoff over the drainage area in
bioretention modeling.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
This work was supported by Scientific Research Projects
Coordination Unit of Istanbul University, Project number
33099. The writers would like to thank Scientific Research
Projects Coordination Unit of Istanbul University. The
authors also would like to express their gratitude to the
anonymous reviewer and the Editor for their excellent sug-
gestions, which strengthened the paper.
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First received 10 May 2017; accepted in revised form 7 August 2017. Available online 29 August 2017