Comparison of Water Characteristics of Cleaning Wastewater and Stormwater Runoff from Highways

The paved areas in nonpoint source are highly polluted landuses because of high imperviousness and pollutant mass emissions, such as sand, cereals, and dust from vehicle activities. Most of them in highways are collected by cleaning trucks or discharged to the adjacent soil and water system through the drain ditch in stormwater. Therefore, it is necessary to investigate the relationship between water concentration and total pollutant loadings from the paved areas. From the experiment, CODcr concentration of the cleaning wastewater was 17 times greater than that of the stormwater runoff. Also, concentrations of heavy metals (Cu, Fe, Zn) were 1.3 to 1.5 times higher when compared to the stormwater runoff. While total discharged loadings was insignificant in the cleaning wastewater. In conclusion, these results provide some evidence that the stormwater runoff may be managed carefully to the aspect of total pollutant loadings and the cleaning wastewater may be handled cautiously with the pollutant concentrations in highways.