A spatial planning-support system for generating decentralised urban stormwater management schemes

Abstract

Current Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) models are either purely technical or overly simplified, lacking consideration of urban planning and stakeholder preferences to adequately support stakeholders. We developed the Urban Biophysical Environments and Technologies Simulator (UrbanBEATS), which integrates stormwater management with urban planning to support the design and implementation of WSUD. This study specifically describes and tests UrbanBEATS' WSUD Planning Module, which combines spatial analysis, infrastructure design, preference elicitation and Monte Carlo methods to generate feasible stormwater management and harvesting infrastructure options in greenfield and existing urban environments. By applying UrbanBEATS to a real-world greenfield development case study in Melbourne, Australia (with data sourced from the project's water management plans and design consultants), we explore the variety of options generated by the model and analyse them collectively to demonstrate that UrbanBEATS can design similar WSUD systems (e.g. select suitable technology types, their sizes and locations) to actual infrastructure choices.