Remco van de Beek

Municipal water utilities often only have access to a sparse network of rain gauges (ca. 10 in Stockholm).With sparse networks there is a risk to under- or overestimate sewer flow calculations when showers passbetween gauges, or when a spatially concentrated shower hits a gauge. Moreover, significant resourcesare required to keep the gauge network operational and reliable. Microwave links in telecommunicationnetworks can measure rainfall. The link network is much denser than the gauge network (here we study500 links in Stockholm), and is continuously maintained. Such links can hence be a valuable complementto gauges. This study initially compares link-based and gauge-based rainfall data. Generally, we observedlower maximum intensities for the links compared with the gauges: the shorter the duration the largerthe difference. Subsequently, we investigate how increasing network density and different types of raindata affects runoff, pipe flow and overflow in the sewer network using a hydraulic model. The resultsshow large differences in calculated flow between varying network densities (sometimes +/-80 %), andthat doubling the density often was sufficient during the seven studied rain events. Increasing the densityusing microwave links also gave better correspondence with measured inflow to the Henriksdal sewagetreatment plant. In summary, operational telecommunication networks have a large potential to complement rain gauges for water utilities.