Rainwater management in protected areas

Inglés. The aim of the study was to find out whether the climate of the southern Poland allows for removing rainwater from industrial areas by evaporation from roof surfaces. The study covered the premises of a Logistics Centre with an approximate area of 34 hectares, located in the catchment of the Wedonka stream and in the region of water intake for Kraków at the Rudawa river. In the future, the Centre will comprise nine large warehouses. Road traffic associated with the project will cause potential risks for groundwater and surface water of this protected area. Therefore, the Centre’s investor decided to evaporate rainwater from the premises. To establish advisability of this plan, the study team designed and built a unique experimental station consisting of experimental roof, tank for collecting water for the sprinkler system, system for delivering, distributing and discharging water from the roof, measuring tilt tray, automatic meteorological station, and electronic devices for recording measurement data. The research on the experimental station was carried out from April to October in 2011 and 2012 and included continuous measurements of the volume of water supplied to and discharged from the roof. Moreover, the temperature of the roof and water in the tank and a number of important meteorological parameters were measured. The difference between supplied and discharged water, divided by the wetted surface of the roof, helped to determine thickness of the evaporation layer in millimeters. The study confirmed the possibility of removing potentially contaminated rainwater by evaporating it from roof surfaces of the Logistics Centre located near Kraków at an average rate of 5.9 dm3·m–2.d–1. However, due to high seasonal variability of rainfall and air temperature, it is necessary to temporarily collect water in an expansion tank of suitable capacity.

Inglés. industrial roof, experimental station, Evaporation, rainwater

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69-77

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