The impact of stormwater management strategies on the flow regime of a peri-urban catchment facing urbanisation and climate change: a distributed modelling study in Lyon, France

Abstract

ABSTRACT The relative impact of urbanisation (urban sprawl), climate change (rainfall and evapotranspiration) and stormwater disconnection strategies (implementation of green infrastructure (GI)) on a peri-urban stream in the western suburbs of Lyon, France, was investigated using a distributed, physically based model (J2000P). Results showed that ambitious catchment-scale implementation of GI has the potential to mitigate some hydrological effects of urbanisation, especially a drastic reduction of combined sewer overflows. However, GI did not have a large impact on the stream flow regime, especially in the context of climate change, as the stream is dominated by non-urban contributions. Spatially distributed models have the capacity to inform river managers about the extent of implementation of GI needed to achieve given management goals and highlight some limitations of disconnection strategies. Indeed, while GI improved the resilience of sewer networks to global change, it was not sufficient to compensate for the effects of climate change on streamflow.