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Urban Sewers Evolve Similarly to River Networks

The sanitary sewer networks on Oahu Island, Hawaii. New research shows that sewer networks evolve in a fractal way similar to rivers. Inside the circle, the more detailed layout of sewer networks is shown. Credit: Soohyun Yang, combining image from GoogleEarth, via Earth System Research Laboratory, and open source sewage network data from the City and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting

10 Jan 2018
News Source: Eos

Like river systems, engineered drainage networks become increasingly fractal as they grow.

Image: The sanitary sewer networks on Oahu Island, Hawaii. New research shows that sewer networks evolve in a fractal way similar to rivers. Inside the circle, the more detailed layout of sewer networks is shown. Credit: Soohyun Yang, combining image from GoogleEarth, via Earth System Research Laboratory, and open source sewage network data from the City and County of Honolulu, Department of Planning and Permitting [Click image to enlarge]

Beneath city streets, sewer systems direct the flow of wastewater toward treatment plants. Sewer pipe networks also drain storm water to prevent urban flooding. These urban networks perform a landscape drainage function similar to that of natural river networks. Now a new study by Yang et al. demonstrates for the first time that the two network types also evolve similarly over time. …


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News Category:
RESEARCH | INFRASTRUCTURE


People Involved

CZO
Non-CZO

Soohyun Yang, - Purdue University

Kyungrock Paik, - Korea University

Gavan McGrath - Purdue University

Christian Urich - Monash University

Elisabeth Krueger - Purdue University

P. Suresh C. Rao - Purdue University


Publications

2017

Functional Topology of Evolving Urban Drainage Networks. Yang, S., Paik, K., McGrath, G., Urich, C., Krueger, E., Kumar, P., and Rao, P. (2017): Water Resources Research

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