The Effectiveness of Vegetative Swale on Surface Runoff at Construction Sites

• Main Author: Ismail, Asma Farah
• Format: Final Year Project
• Language: English
• Published: Universiti Teknologi Petronas 2008
• Subjects: TA Engineering (General). Civil engineering (General)
• Online Access: http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/7423/1/2008%20-%20The%20Effectiveness%20of%20Vegetative%20Swale%20on%20Surface%20Runoff%20at%20Construction%20Sites.pdf; http://utpedia.utp.edu.my/7423/

The main objective of this project is to reduce the water pollution from construction site by implementing the green construction concept. The temporary drainages from construction sites; especially during construction stage, contain quite an amount of pollutants; chemically and physically, as the runoff was resulted from the non source point. When it enters the water body, pollutants are brought in as well, affecting the earth, the aquatic system and also the human being. This project is focusing on reducing the amount of pollutants from the construction site's drain before it enters and merge with other existing drainage systems. The scope of this study is to research on the previous water-quality based projects that can be improvised to suit for the green construction concept then followed by designing suitable vegetative swale model. The water from two residential constructions sites nearby were collected and checked in the laboratory to determine the respective water quality parameters i.e., Total Suspended Solid (TSS), Turbidity, Chemical Oxygen Demand (COD), Biological Oxygen Demand (BOD), Nitrate (N03), Metals (Zink & Iron) and pH. The parameters then compared with the standards available in Malaysia. Then, a model of vegetative swale is constructed to experiment the removal efficiency of those parameters. It was found that vegetative swale is effective in removing pollutants i.e., 96% Zinc, 52.8% Iron, 85.4% COD and 80.8% TSS, from construction sites. This project concluded that the vegetative swale has significantly improved the water quality standard by neutralizing it from Class V to Class III.