Impacts of climate change on rainfall extremes and urban drainage systems: a review

A Pathirana,H Madsen,I Bülow Gregersen,J Olsson,K Arnbjerg-Nielsen,P Willems,S Beecham,V.-T.-V Nguyen

doi:10.2166/wst.2013.251

Abstract

A review is made of current methods for assessing future changes in urban rainfall extremes and their effects on urban drainage systems, due to anthropogenic-induced climate change. The review concludes that in spite of significant advances there are still many limitations in our understanding of how to describe precipitation patterns in a changing climate in order to design and operate urban drainage infrastructure. Climate change may well be the driver that ensures that changes in urban drainage paradigms are identified and suitable solutions implemented. Design and optimization of urban drainage infrastructure considering climate change impacts and co-optimizing these with other objectives will become ever more important to keep our cities habitable into the future.

Highlights

Over the past 150 years urban drainage systems have secured human health and enabled denser city development and are considered to be one of the most important achievements of mankind, enabling development to modern societies (Ferriman )
This paper has described the most advanced methods for analysing climate change impacts on precipitation extremes in urban areas
Much literature has become available on the impacts of climate change on precipitation extremes and urban drainage systems, but there are still large gaps in our understanding

Summary

Introduction

Over the past 150 years urban drainage systems have secured human health and enabled denser city development and are considered to be one of the most important achievements of mankind, enabling development to modern societies (Ferriman ). At the same time we have increased our knowledge of precipitation extremes and improved our understanding of hydrological responses and hydraulic transport phenomena in cities. This knowledge has been used to design urban drainage infrastructure to meet often increasing service levels. The IWA/IAHR Joint Committee on Urban Drainage established the International Working Group on Urban Rainfall to focus on these research needs Members of this group recently initiated an extensive review of current methods for assessing long-term historical and future trends in urban rainfall extremes and their effects on urban drainage systems due to anthropogenic climate change (Willems et al ).

Methods

Discussion

Conclusion