Uncertainty in urban stormwater quality modelling: the influence of likelihood measure formulation in the GLUE methodology

Abstract

In the last years, the attention on integrated analysis of sewer networks, wastewater treatment plants and receiving waters has been growing. However, the common lack of data in the urban water-quality field and the incomplete knowledge regarding the interpretation of the main phenomena taking part in integrated urban water systems draw attention to the necessity of evaluating the reliability of model results. Uncertainty analysis can provide useful hints and information regarding the best model approach to be used by assessing its degrees of significance and reliability. Few studies deal with uncertainty assessment in the integrated urban-drainage field. In order to fill this gap, there has been a general trend towards transferring the knowledge and the methodologies from other fields. In this respect, the Generalised Likelihood Uncertainty Evaluation (GLUE) methodology, which is widely applied in the field of hydrology, can be a possible candidate for providing a solution to the above problem. However, the methodology relies on several user-defined hypotheses in the selection of a specific formulation of the likelihood measure. This paper presents a survey aimed at evaluating the influence of the likelihood measure formulation in the assessment of uncertainty in integrated urban-drainage modelling. To accomplish this objective, a home-made integrated urban-drainage model was applied to the Savena case study (Bologna, IT). In particular, the integrated urban-drainage model uncertainty was evaluated employing different likelihood measures. The results demonstrate that the subjective selection of the likelihood measure greatly affects the GLUE uncertainty analysis.