The Need for Making Urban Drainage Systems Resilient to Uncertain Future Changes

Document Type : review paper

Authors

• Negin Binesh
• Mohammad Hossein Niksokhan
• Amin Sarang

University of Tehran

10.22067/jwsd.v4i2.57826

Abstract

Nowadays, resilience has become increasingly important as a novel approach for enhancing preparedness, increasing the adaptability in coping with flood occurrence, and decreasing the vulnerability of flood-prone communities due to undesirable effects of floods in urban catchments. Resiliency refers to the ability of a system to absorb and recover from a disruption. Despite the significant advances in achieving a sustainable urban water management worldwide, urban drainage systems are progressively being threatened by future uncertain drivers. Therefore today, making urban drainage systems resilient to floods has become an essential task around the world in order to increase the long-term sustainability of urban communities. After an introduction to the resilience concept and its applicability in the context of water resources infrastructures, this paper discusses the urban drainage system resilience under the effects of future uncertain conditions (due to climate change and urban development), and investigates quantifying such systems’ resistance to flooding. The paper reviews some important researches on the subject, and discusses the appropriate methods related to applying the resilience approach to integrated urban drainage management. Finally, conclusions will be offered according to presented discussions, the necessity of using an integrated perspective in managing urban runoff and floods, paying attention to sustainability criteria, and also the necessity of taking preferences into account in decision making on using sustainable drainage techniques, considering the condition of the studied region will be emphasised.

Keywords

• Resilience
• Sustainability
• Urban drainage
• runoff

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