Hydraulics of Sediment Movement in Urban Drainage Systems

JO In order to implement its objective, the Task Committee organized technical sessions at the 1999 WRPM conference in Tempe, Arizona, the 2000 EWRI conference in Minneapolis, and the 2001 EWRI conference in Orlando, Florida. Because of the important European advances in this field, many of the invited speakers came from across the Atlantic. The presented papers were published in the proceedings of those conferences. The authors were then invited to submit refined and extended journal papers. These refined and extended papers were then submitted to the rigorous review of ASCE journals. This special issue represents the culmination of that effort. The papers can be classified into four categories: ~1! review of recent research and practice in the U.S.; ~2! review of recent research and practice in Europe; ~3! new design methodologies for self-cleansing sewers; and ~4! specialized aspects having to do with the detail of the sediment transport in sewers and the impact of the sediments on the pollution in the receiving streams. In the first category, Fan et al. present a historical summary of the sewer sediment control projects carried out by the WetWeather Flow Research Program of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. Among the researches presented are studies of the causes of sewer solid deposition and methods to prevent sewer sediment accumulations. The use of an integrated approach including solid source management, in-sewer control, and treatment facilities is advocated and sewer flushing is presented as a method of sewer sediment control. Pisano et al. discuss further flushing experiences in Cambridge, Massachusetts, and report on automated flushing techniques used in France and Germany. In the second category on European research, Ashley et al. summarize the very extensive research into sewer sediments and associated processes that has taken place in Europe during the last two decades. In fact, European research on this subject has been