Quality stormwater modeling in small suburban catchments: a case study

Rural stormwater management is usually considered less important in respect of large urbanized areas, and only a few scientific papers investigated on it. Italy is a really small country if compared with other states like Canada or Australia, but it exhibits a strong suburban and rural urbanization: we can find a large number of singleindependent rural villages, each one with its sewer network and treatment plant. Little basins can have a strong first flush behaviour and actually there no studies which have examined rural stormwater management in the Friulian Region in Italy. Depending on the availability of surface water, stormwater can be discharged in rivers or into infiltration ponds: in the middle of the Friulian plain the second option is really common. Sewers and treatment plants were projected a few decades ago when first flush effect was not widely known as it is nowadays. The authors of this study want to start a monitoring program on stormwater with the aim of modeling and calculating the first foul flush phenomenon by using software EPA-SWMM 5.1 in rural areas of the Friulian Region in Italy, in order to assess possible risk associated with infiltration or reuse of stormwater.