Resilient stormwater management in a changing climate - optimizing gully pots

In our built environment, the stormwater runoff from roads must be handled to prevent flooding as climate changes causes increased precipitation.

All over a city, stormwater from roads is gathered in gully pots and thereafter led out to receiving waters through the stormwater system. In a changing climate the quantity of water is expected to increase in Sweden.

Not only water quantity but also quality is of importance, where road runoff has been shown to contain particles and pollutants such as microplastics, oil spill, organic pollutants and metals.

The limited understanding of gully pots capacity to handle future increased stormwater flows and retain particles and pollutants has been highlighted.

The aim of this project is to close the knowledge gap on the capacity of gully pots to handle water volumes and retain particles and pollutants in conditions of increased stormwater flows due to changing climate.

Insight on the fate of particles and pollutants in the gully pot and the stormwater system will identify the most efficient treatment solutions, including both source control measures and engineered methods such as the design of gully pots.

The project contributes to a circular economy by providing sediments with high content of pollutants where metals and rubber tire particles can be extracted, recovered and reused in society.