Any suggestions?

Dear SWMMers,

Greetings. My name is Joseph Pang and I am a Master Student in the field of Water Resource at the University of British Columbia. I would like to ask for advice from all of you as to what book(s) I should buy if I want to learn more about modeling. I went to CHI's website and discovered that there are so many books on modeling. I just don't know which one to get. My background in modeling is I used RUNSTDY to do Dry Weather Modeling before. I don't have any experience in Wet Weather Modeling. I also worked a little bit with Neural Net. I had one introductory hydrology course and four hydraulic courses in my undergrad degree and one sediment transport course in my Master degree so far. I just ordered PCSWMM98 from CHI and had just joined the SWMM discussion group. I would like to peruse my career in the field of urban sewer system modeling and management. With this background and career goal, where should I start to learn more?

Thanks for your advice in advance.
Humbly yours,
Joseph

Joseph --

I don't think a textbook is going to do it. They'll give you the background in hydrology and hydraulics you need, but don't do much for developing model input files and interpreting the output. They also aren't much help in the all important area of making enough assumptions to model something without any data!

I learned SWMM on the job, working with another SWMM'er (Don Waye), feeding him catchment and pipe data then dissecting the input files he produced.

I found one reference to be indispensable: the Version 4 SWMM manual, published in 1988. It not only gives you the H&H background, it shows how that is used to build the input for each block, discusses shortcuts and pitfalls, and gives data to plug in if you have none of your own. And it's very well referenced so you can track down the source of the numbers you're using.

William H. Frost, P.E.
bfrost@co.arlington.va.us