Optimal location of infiltration-based best management practices for storm water management

A distributed hydrologic model of an urban watershed in the northeast United States was developed and combined with a genetic algorithm to determine the optimal location of infiltration-based best management practices (BMPs) for storm water management. The distributed, event-based hydrologic model integrates the curve number method with a distributed hydrologic network model of the catchment using a system of 4,533 hydrologic response units (HRUs). The infiltration-based BMP was conceptualized as an element that alters the infiltration/runoff partitioning of the HRUs in which it was applied. The results indicate that the optimal location and number of BMPs is a complex function of watershed network connectivity, flow travel time, land use, distance to channel, and contributing area, requiring an optimization approach of the type introduced here. A Pareto frontier describing the trade-off between the number of BMPs, representing project cost, and watershed flooding was developed.