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Updated: May 23, 2026

Design and Construction of an Urban Runoff Research Facility
Published on: August 8, 2014
[Characterization and source apportionment of pollutants in urban roadway runoff in Chongqing]
Qian-Qian Zhang1, Xiao-Ke Wang, Li-Ling Hao
1State Key Laboratory of Urban and Regional Ecology, Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing 100085, China. z_qqian@163.com
Abstract:
By investigating surface runoff from urban roadway in Chongqing, we assessed the characteristics of surface runoff pollution and the effect of rainfall intensity and antecedent dry weather period on water quality. Using multivariate statistical analysis of data of runoff quality, potential pollutants discharged from urban roadway runoff were identified. The results show that the roadway runoff has high levels of COD, TP and TN, the EMC were 60.83-208.03 mg x L(-1), 0.47-1.01 mg x L(-1) and 2.07-5.00 mg x L(-1) respectively, being the main pollutants; The peaks of pollutant concentration are ahead of or synchronous with the peak of runoff volume; the peaks of pollutant concentrations are mostly occurred within 10 minutes of rainfall. The heavy metal concentrations fluctuate dentately during runoff proceeding. Two potential pollution sources to urban roadway runoff apportioned by using principal component analysis are: vehicle's traffic loss and atmospheric dry and wet deposition, and municipal wastes.

