Urban Flood Risk and Economic Viability Analyses of a Smart Sustainable Drainage System

Helena M Ramos,Mohsen Besharat

doi:10.3390/su132413889

Abstract

Urban drainage systems are in transition from functioning simply as a transport system to becoming an important element of urban flood protection measures providing considerable influence on urban infrastructure sustainability. Rapid urbanization combined with the implications of climate change is one of the major emerging challenges. The increased concerns with water security and the ageing of existing drainage infrastructure are new challenges in improving urban water management. This study carried out in the Seixal area in Portugal examines flood risk analyses and mitigation techniques performed by computational modelling using MIKE SHE from the Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI). Several scenarios were compared regarding flood risk and sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) efficiency. To obtain a more accurate analysis, the economic viability of each technique was analyzed as well through (i) life cost analysis and (ii) taking into account the damages caused by a certain type of flood. The results present that the best scenario is the one that will minimize the effects of great urbanization and consequently the flood risk, which combines two different measures: permeable pavement and detention basin. This alternative allows us to fully explore the mitigation capacity of each viable technique, demonstrating a very important improvement in the flood mitigation system in Seixal.

Highlights

IntroductionThe development of urban areas through the rapid flow of urbanization continuously expands the impervious surfaces that are directly increasing the runoff depth and flood volume
Other techFigure 6. (a) Permeable pavement technique applied in QGIS; (b) MIKE SHE model for flood with niques likepavement experimental investigations permeable technique applied. can be very expensive and hard to provide enough accuracy in the sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS) topic [40]
Climate change and urbanization are making flood occurrences a very frequent event that puts the health of urban areas and infrastructures at risk

Summary

Introduction

The development of urban areas through the rapid flow of urbanization continuously expands the impervious surfaces that are directly increasing the runoff depth and flood volume It generates some new challenges related to sustainability such as environmental degradation, energy intensity and carbon emissions. It is expected that cities will face resource distribution challenges associated with an increase in the population flow, energy issues due to the reduction of fossil fuel resources, escalation maintenance and management costs due to ageing infrastructure and improper land resource utilization. These facts combined with climate change likely increase the risk of floods.

Objectives

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Results

Conclusion