Evaluation of the methods for first flush analysis in urban watersheds

The general tendency between the ratio of cumulative pollutant loads and the ratio of cumulative runoff appears as a nonlinear form which can be expressed in the form of a third polynomial. In this paper third degree polynomials were applied to represent the first flush curves based on the relationship between the cumulative pollutant load ratio and cumulative runoff ratio. The quantity of stormwater runoff and quality constituents, including chemical oxygen demand (COD), suspended solids (SS), total Kjeldahl nitrogen (TKN), ortho-phosphorus (PO4-P), total phosphorus (TP), n-hexane extracts (HEM), and iron (Fe) were analysed. The objectives of this study were (1) to characterize the quality of stormwater runoff (2) in order to analyse the cumulative curve area ratio and to calculate the first flush coefficients, (3) while also representing the first flush with a third polynomial equation.