ABSTRACT
The necessity of incorporating a resilience-informed approach into urban planning and its decision-making is felt now more than any time previously, particularly in low and middle income countries. In order to achieve a successful transition to sustainable, resilient and cost-effective cities, there is a growing attention given to more effective integration of nature-based solutions, such as Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), with other urban components. The experience of SuDS integration with urban planning, in developed cities, has proven to be an effective strategy with a wide range of advantages and lower costs. The effective design and implementation of SuDS requires a multi-objective approach by which all four pillars of SuDS design (i.e., water quality, water quantity, amenity and biodiversity) are considered in connection to other urban, social, and economic aspects and constraints. This study develops a resilience-driven multi-objective optimisation model aiming to provide a Pareto-front of optimised solutions for effective incorporation of SuDS into (peri)urban planning, applied to a case study in Brazil. This model adopts the SuDS's two pillars of water quality and water quantity as the optimisation objectives with its level of spatial distribution as decision variables. Also, an improved quality of life index (iQoL) is developed to re-evaluate the optimal engineering solutions to encompass the amenity and biodiversity pillars of SuDS. Rain barrels, green roofs, bio-retention tanks, vegetation grass swales and permeable pavements are the suitable SuDS options identified in this study. The findings show that the most resilient solutions are costly but this does not guarantee higher iQoL values. Bio-retention tanks and grass swales play effective roles in promotion of water quality resilience but this comes with considerable increase in costs. Permeable pavements and green roofs are effective strategies when flood resilience is a priority. Rain barrel is a preferred solution due to the dominance of residential areas in the study area and the lower cost of this option.
Subject(s)
Quality of Life , Rain , Brazil , Cities , FloodsABSTRACT
RESUMO O processo de urbanização resulta em alterações no ciclo hidrológico prejudiciais à população. Para amenizar esses efeitos, as técnicas compensatórias em drenagem urbana visam à maior sustentabilidade hidrológica na expansão urbana. Nesse sentido, este artigo teve como objetivos avaliar, por meio de modelagem computacional, o efeito da adoção dessas técnicas na escala de lote e da bacia hidrográfica e avançar com diferentes possibilidades de concepção de projeto. A modelagem foi realizada para diversos cenários, considerando a implantação das técnicas de forma isolada e combinada. Os parâmetros utilizados na modelagem visaram verificar possibilidades extremas de aplicação, de modo a disponibilizar dados para balizamento de projetos reais. As chuvas avaliadas possuem variadas durações e intensidades, facilitando a extrapolação dos resultados deste trabalho para bacias hidrográficas de diferentes escalas. Os resultados das simulações indicam potenciais benefícios na drenagem urbana oriundos do uso dessas técnicas no lote, com mais efetividade para as menores chuvas de projeto. Esse foi o caso dos cenários que avaliaram os jardins rebaixados isoladamente ou combinados em série com um reservatório de lote e os cenários de pavimentos permeáveis na calçada que receberiam o escoamento superficial do lote adjacente. Também foi verificado que a combinação paralela de um reservatório de lote com as dimensões propostas pela legislação municipal e um jardim rebaixado em 0,07 m seria capaz de neutralizar, hidrologicamente, os impactos da ocupação do lote para todas as chuvas de projeto analisadas, entretanto o reservatório proposto pela legislação municipal, quando adotado isoladamente, quase não atuou na escala da bacia..
ABSTRACT The urbanization process results in detrimental changes in the hydrological cycle to the population. In order to mitigate these effects, compensatory techniques in urban drainage aim at increasing hydrological sustainability in urban expansion. In this sense, this paper intended to, through computer modeling, evaluate the effect of the adoption of these techniques on site scale and at the watershed scale, as well as to discuss different design concepts. The modeling was performed for different scenarios, considering the implementation of the techniques isolated and combined. The parameters proposed for modeling aimed to check the extreme possibilities for their application in order to make data available for actual projects. The rainfalls have been evaluated for different durations and intensities, thus facilitating the extrapolation of this study results for variable watershed scales. The modeling results pointed to potential benefits on the urban drainage due to the compensatory techniques adoption at the lot scale, with the property owner being capable to easily control the smaller design rainfalls. This was the case of the scenarios with raingardens isolated or combined in series with a lot reservoir or the scenarios where a permeable pavement on sidewalk received runoff from the adjacent lot. The parallel combination of a lot reservoir proposed by the municipal legislation and a raingarden with only 0,07 m depth would be capable of hidrologically neutralize the impacts of the occupation for all project rains analyzed. Nevertheless, the same reservoir proposed by the municipal legislation, when used isolatedly, showed little or none benefits on the basin scale.
