Measuring the solids loading of urban drainage systems via run off

Sewer and urban drainage systems deal with the runoff of areas that lack infiltration capacity. During wet weather, solids that are present on the street are (re)mobilised and transported to the drainage system by the runoff. These solids and their associated pollutants can have detrimental effects on receiving water quality. This paper presents a new measurement device which has been developed to measure the inflow of solids in gully pots. This device has been applied to 100 gully pots over a period of a year, rendering a large dataset of solid inflows to the sewer. The results indicate that only 25% of solids is captured in gully pots without this device. This renders a huge potential for further optimisation of gully pot management, which is typically optimised towards prevention of blockage rather than removing a maximum amount of solids