Bio-Retention Cells Performance in Restoring the Hydrologic Cycle of Highly Urbanized Catchments

Rapid urbanization is responsible for impervious area increases and more runoff generation in urbanized catchments. Higher runoff volume in urbanized catchments leads to higher flood risk. One of the methods of runoff management is low impact development (LID). Bio-retention cell (BRC) is one of the infiltration-based LID practices that allows restoring the pre-development hydrologic cycle. However, the overall hydrologic performance of BRCs can vary depending on different urban environments. In this study, the hydrologic performance of BRC in terms of runoff and flood reduction was investigated in a highly urbanized area in the east of Tehran, Iran. The SWMM model was used to evaluate the performance of BRC. The results showed that BRC for rainfall with a return period of 2 to 50 years reduced the total runoff volume by 76.2% to 70.2% and the peak discharge by 65.9% to 36.4%, respectively. Also, for rainfall with a return period of 2 to 50 years, BRC resulted in 15.2% to 27.5% infiltration of rainfall in the study area, respectively. This study demonstrates that BRC can help restore the natural hydrologic cycle of urbanized catchments by reducing runoff and increasing infiltration.