Prediction of Infiltration Rate of Rain Garden Using Conventional Models

Rain gardens are the best storm water management practice these days and are frequently used all over the globe especially in urban areas to reduce urban storm water impacts. Four small rain gardens (two of them having an area of 2 m2 and the remaining two having an area of 1 m2 each) are constructed in the Hydraulics lab of Civil Engineering Department, NIT Kurukshetra. To study infiltration characteristics of the rain gardens, four distinct varieties of flora (Marigold flower plant, Scutch Grass, Candytuft flower plant, and Daisy flower plant) have been used with different plants counts. Results indicate that the rain garden with the higher density of Scutch grass vegetation cover infiltrate the water most expeditiously. The infiltration rates with Scutch grass plants vary 4–12 cm/h, with Candytuft 4–8 cm/h, with Daisy plants 5–6 cm/h and with Marigold plants 4–9 cm/h. Kostiakov model (KM) and Multi-linear Regression (MLR) prophesy the Infiltration rate having various input parameters namely temperature, soil water content, water inflow rate, number of plants, plant height. In comparative study between KM and MLR for predicting infiltration rate, the choice of plant is the major factor governing the adoption of the technique. Thus, available models should be adopted carefully for predicting the infiltration rate for different plant types.