IDEAL model

IDEAL (Integrated Design, Evaluation, and Assessment of Loadings) is a post-construction water quality model for designing stormwater best management practices (BMP) (see Best management practice for water pollution) and calculating their effectiveness in removing common stormwater pollutants (sediments, bacteria, nitrogen and phosphorus). The model's runoff treatment algorithms are process-based by predicting runoff rates and pollutant loads and routing these loadings through BMPs using technologies which have been experimentally validated. Using isothermic relationships along with accepted decay, settling, and infiltration methods, pollutant trapping in BMPs is computed. The developers of the IDEAL model are Bill Barfield (Regents Professor at Oklahoma State University, Woolpert Inc.) and John Hayes of Clemson University. Currently, six BMPs can be modeled with IDEAL: sand filters, wet and dry detention basin, bioswales, bioretention cells, and vegetated filter strips. The ability to model engineered devices has recently been developed, but requires trapping efficiency information to be input. Rainwater tanks or cisterns can also be modeled. Currently, hydraulic modeling of closed systems and open channels is simplistic.