Performance Evaluation of Soil Cell

Soil Cell is a novel Low-Impact Development practice that is suitable for densely developed urban environment. This thesis seeks to gain further understanding of soil cell’s performance in terms of water quality and quality control; and to assess the exfiltration performance of perforated pipe in soil cells by monitoring an active cell. The monitoring result showed that the cell was very effective in treating particulate (90% concentration reduction), metal (91% lead concentration reduction to 53% copper concentration reduction) and phosphorus (74% concentration reduction). The cell was ineffective in treating chloride (1% concentration increase, no statistical significance) and even caused nitrate leaching (65% concentration increase). Field performance of the soil cell indicated that the inflow perforated backed up frequently, restricting the flow into the cell but laboratory testing of the perforated pipes’ hydraulic performance confirms that the pipe has a sufficient capacity to convey the flows of up to 10 L/s.