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Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management

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A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: 30 May 2024 | Viewed by 7825

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Dr. Jinjun Zhou

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Guest Editor

Faculty of Architecture, Civil and Transportation Engineering, Beijing University of Technology, Beijing, China
Interests: urban flooding; stormwater simulation; urban drainage network simulation; rainfall forecast; resilient city
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Dr. Hao Wang

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Dear Colleagues,

Urban flood management is an important part of urban water supply, water drainage, and water safety management. It is one of the hot topics in current urban hydrological research, and also the scientific basis for urban green and sustainable development, scientific planning, and construction. It is closely related to urban residents' health and flood control safety. The main research topics include urban waterlogging, urban flood disaster, urban stormwater management, urban low-impact development, sponge city design and construction, urban hydrological cycle, urban water security, urban water resources, urban water environment and water ecology, cause analysis of urban flood disaster, disaster loss evaluation, rainstorm-flood emergency technology, urban rainstorm-flood countermeasure, risk assessment and management of urban flood disaster, etc. Research articles, review articles, or other articles in related fields and research topics are highly welcome.

Dr. Jinjun Zhou
Dr. Hao Wang
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

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Keywords

urban hydrology
urban flood
urban waterlogging
low impact development
sponge city
urban stormwater management
urban flood damage
flood hazard risk

Published Papers (11 papers)

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Research

18 pages, 3403 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Design Issue Analysis and Operation Effect Evaluation of Large-Scale Storage Tank

by Junqi Li and Chengyuan Yang

Water 2024, 16(8), 1097; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16081097 - 11 Apr 2024

Viewed by 398

Abstract

In order to address the issue of combined sewer overflows (CSOs), W city has constructed a large-scale storage tank with a volume of 220,000 m³. The storage tank is planned for CSO control in the near term and stormwater runoff pollution control in the long term. However, the actual operation of the storage tank is unsatisfactory. This paper elucidates the design scheme and operation mode of the tank and analyzes the challenges encountered during its design and operation. A storm water management model (SWMM) model was constructed to simulate the effect of the storage tank working in a combined sewer system (CSS), a separate sewer system (SSS) and a decentralized storage situation. This study determined that during the 2022 rainy season, the actual reduction in pollutants by the storage tank was only about 60% of the designed value. As a result, the inadequate treatment capacity of the downstream wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) resulted in the water being retained in the tank for a long time, leading to unsatisfactory operation outcomes. If the storage tank works in SSS and the problem of water retention can be solved, it could reduce the total runoff volume by 30% and the total amount of pollutants by 40% during the same rainy season. At the same time, under the premise of constant total storage volume, if decentralized storage tanks were used to control runoff pollution, the reduction effect can be increased by up to 11.6% compared with that of the centralized storage. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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18 pages, 6034 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Optimization of LID Strategies for Urban CSO Reduction and Cost Efficiency: A Beijing Case Study

by Hao Wang, Pengfei Zeng, Zilong Liu, Wentao Li and Jinjun Zhou

Water 2024, 16(7), 965; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16070965 - 27 Mar 2024

Viewed by 621

Abstract

Combined sewer overflow (CSO) can lead to serious urban water environment pollution and health risks to residents. Low Impact Development (LID) facilities are one of the important measures to alleviate CSO and have been widely applied. The rational selection of LID facility types, locations, and scales is the most important task, which can effectively improve resource utilization efficiency. Based on the NSGA-II multi-objective optimization algorithm and coupled with the SWMM sewer network hydraulic model, this study takes the combined sewer overflows and the construction cost of LID facilities as optimization objectives and optimizes the types and scales of LID layout in the study area, including eight different return periods. By using the Pareto frontier and visualizing the results of the model, the effects of different rainfall return periods on the CSO control and investment cost of LID layout schemes are compared. The results show the following: (1) the optimization model can demonstrate the relationship between CSO control volume and LID construction cost under different LID layout schemes through the Pareto frontier, showing three different trends, indicating that the relationship between overflow volume and investment cost is nonlinear; (2) with the increase in rainfall intensity, higher requirements are proposed for LID schemes to meet CSO control targets, leading to a decrease in the number of Pareto frontier solution sets. Under larger rainfall intensities, it is difficult to achieve the same overflow control effect by increasing the scale of LID construction. Therefore, considering constraining the LID construction cost between RMB 5.3 and 5.38 million is helpful to determine the most suitable solution; (3) in the optimal layout schemes under different return periods, 87.3% of the locations where LID is deployed have similar scales. Based on these locations with a relatively large proportion of deployment, it can be determined that special attention should be paid to spatial positions in LID planning and construction. This study provides valuable insights for solving combined sewer overflow problems and optimizing urban drainage management and provides guidance for future planning and decision-making processes. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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21 pages, 42312 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Operation Risk Simulation and Interaction Impact of Stormwater and Sewage Systems Based on Storm Water Management Model

by Wentao Li, Zijian Wang, Jinjun Zhou, Yali Pang and Hao Wang

Water 2024, 16(7), 953; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16070953 - 26 Mar 2024

Viewed by 610

Abstract

With the increasing urbanization rate, higher demand is placed on drainage systems, necessitating analysis of their risk profiles. While many studies focus on the individual hydraulic modeling of stormwater and wastewater systems when considering operational risks, they often overlook the exacerbating effects of combined stormwater and wastewater flows on each other’s risks. In this study, we constructed a model of the combined stormwater and wastewater drainage system in Lijiao, Guangdong Province. We analyzed the operational risks of both stormwater and sewage networks in different scenarios, focusing on full-load pipes, overload pipes, node overflows, and minimum flow velocities. Furthermore, we compared the exacerbating effects of sewage and stormwater on each other’s network operational risks. Simulation results indicated that, for sewage networks with combined sewer sections, the lengths of full-load pipes and overload pipes increased by an average of 27.4% and 16.3%, respectively, during rainy weather scenarios compared to dry weather. After considering the inflow of sewage into combined sewer sections, the average length of full-load pipes increased by 3.8 km, overload pipe length increased by 1.1 km, and overflow volume increased by 2.26 × 10⁴ m³. As the return period of rainfall events increases, these inter-system impacts gradually diminish. Therefore, when modeling drainage systems and assessing operational risks, particularly during low return period rainfall events, the inclusion of both stormwater and sewage in combined sewer networks should be comprehensively considered. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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25 pages, 4462 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Characteristics of Urban Flood Resilience Evolution and Analysis of Influencing Factors: A Case Study of Yingtan City, China

by Donghai Yuan, Hui Wang, Chen Wang, Chenling Yan, Lili Xu, Chunyang Zhang, Jiazhuo Wang and Yingying Kou

Water 2024, 16(6), 834; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16060834 - 13 Mar 2024

Viewed by 675

Abstract

Intense climate change and rapid urbanization have increased the risk of urban flooding, seriously affecting urban economic and social stability. Enhancing urban flood resilience (UFR) has required a new solution to cope with urban flood disasters. In this study, taking Yingtan city as an example, a system of indicators for evaluating UFR was constructed, with 17 representative indicators, comprising three subsystems: socio-economic, ecological, and infrastructural. A hybrid model combining Fuzzy Analytic Hierarchy Process (FAHP), Entropy Weight Method (EWM), and Technique for Order Preference by Similarity to Ideal Solution (TOPSIS) was applied, to develop an index-based measurement to compare and evaluate UFR, and Gray Relational Analysis (GRA) was used to discover the main factors affecting UFR. In addition, the natural discontinuous method was innovatively used to divide the UFR grade interval into levels, and the grade change was evaluated based on the TOPSIS method. The results showed that (1) From 2010 to 2022, the UFR in Yingtan City increased by 80.69%, and the factors affecting UFR were highly correlated with urban infrastructure development; however, the ecological resilience in the subsystem showed a fluctuating downward trend because of the influence of the surface area of lakes and rivers; (2) The grades of UFR for Yingtan City increased from Level III (2010 and 2016) to Level IV (2022), with local financial expenditures and the age structure of the population being the main factors currently limiting the development of UFR. The study provides a theoretical basis for the construction of an indicator system for assessing the UFR of Yingtan and proposes practical improvement directions for UFR. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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17 pages, 33601 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Assessment and Improvement of Emergency Rescue Service Accessibility under Urban Waterlogging Disasters

by Jiafu Shi, Hao Wang, Jinjun Zhou and Shuxun Zhang

Water 2024, 16(5), 693; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16050693 - 27 Feb 2024

Viewed by 638

Abstract

With the acceleration of urbanization and the impact of climate change, the frequent occurrence of urban waterlogging not only leads to road closures and traffic congestion but also severely affects the timeliness of urban emergency rescue. To accurately assess and enhance the response capability of urban emergency rescue under storm-induced waterlogging scenarios, a hydrodynamic model of urban waterlogging was developed to simulate waterlogging conditions under various design rainfall scenarios. By identifying road waterlogging risks and blocked roads, as well as combining the Two-Step Floating Catchment Area (2SFCA) method, the accessibility of emergency rescue services for points of interest (POIs) with different vulnerabilities was evaluated. The Liwan District of Guangzhou City was selected as a case study for accessibility impact assessment and improvement simulation. The results indicate that with the increase in the return period of rainfall, both the area and depth of waterlogged regions increased and the number of roads affected by waterlogging rose, leading to an increase in the length of blocked roads from 11 km to 49 km, an increase of over 300%. Additionally, the number of POIs inaccessible to emergency rescue increased, while the number of accessible POIs decreased, resulting in a significant downward trend in overall accessibility. By deploying mobile pumping vehicles, the depth and area of waterlogging under different rainfall return periods were reduced by over 10%, the number of blocked roads decreased by more than 10%, and the number of accessible POIs increased by more than 12%. The findings highlight that storm-induced waterlogging not only hinders traffic flow but also reduces the response capability of emergency rescue services. Through the strategic deployment of mobile pumping vehicles, the accessibility of urban emergency rescue services under waterlogging conditions can be effectively improved, mitigating the impact of waterlogging on urban functions and public safety. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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31 pages, 5253 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Ex-Ante Flooding Damages’ Monetary Valuation Model for Productive and Environmental Resources

by Vincenzo Del Giudice, Francesca Salvo, Pierfrancesco De Paola, Francesco Paolo Del Giudice and Daniela Tavano

Water 2024, 16(5), 665; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16050665 - 24 Feb 2024

Viewed by 600

Abstract

The floods caused by river flooding are increasingly at the center of public attention and government agencies. This is due to climate change, a higher risk consciousness of settled populations, as well as the deteriorating state of water basins caused by the persistent absence of appropriate controls on the use of mountain and hilly territories. In Italy, the risk of flooding is particularly high, posing a significant social problem due to the number of victims and the damage inflicted on properties, industries, and infrastructure. This paper aims to examine the principles and methods of evaluating the damage caused to the territory by river flooding. Two evaluation models are developed for the formal definition of the variation law of damage caused by flooding, considering the return period of the flood event. The first model allows the evaluation of damage to the productive part of the territory affected by floods, while the second considers damage related to the environmental aspects. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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16 pages, 4355 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Systematic Assessment on Waterlogging Control Facilities in Hefei City of Anhui Province in East China

by Hao Hu, Yankun Liu, Jiankang Du, Rongqiong Liu, Banglei Wu and Qingwei Zeng

Water 2024, 16(4), 620; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16040620 - 19 Feb 2024

Viewed by 555

Abstract

Both the renovation of rainwater pipes and the addition of sponge city facilities in the low-terrain residences of urban fringes were rarely systematically simulated using the Storm Water Management Model (SWMM). With the waterlogging prevention project in an old residential quarter at a fringe of Hefei city being an example, this study used the SWMM to simulate the effect of the renovation of rainwater pipes and sponge city facilities under different return periods. The results showed the key nodes on the main pipes met the drainage requirements based on water depth analysis after renovation below the 20-year return period, and the reduction rate of the maximum water depth at the key node J5 was the greatest, with 87.7%. The four flow parameters (the average flow rate, the peak flow rate, the total discharge, and the percentage of water flow frequency) for the two outlets (PFK1 and PFK2) all improved after renovation under five return periods (2, 5, 10, 20, and 50 years [a]). The addition of sponge city facilities effectively reduced the amount of rainwater runoff from 28.68% to 14.78% during 2 a to 50 a, and the maximum reduction rate of water depth, being 61.15%, appeared in J5 under 20 a. The curve integral area of the depth over the elapsed time was innovatively used to indirectly express the accumulated rainwater volume through the rainwater well. This study verified that the SWMM model can be well applied to old low-terrain residential quarters in urban fringes and broadened the application scenario of the model. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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15 pages, 3956 KiB

Open AccessArticle

County-Level Flash Flood Warning Framework Coupled with Disaster-Causing Mechanism

by Meihong Ma, Nan Zhang, Jiufei Geng, Manrong Qiao, Hongyu Ren and Qing Li

Water 2024, 16(3), 376; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16030376 - 23 Jan 2024

Viewed by 764

Abstract

Climate change has intensified the risk of extreme precipitation, while mountainous areas are constrained by complex disaster mechanisms and difficulties in data acquisition, making it challenging for existing critical rainfall threshold accuracy to meet practical needs. Therefore, this study focuses on Yunnan Province as the research area. Based on historical flash flood events, and combining remote sensing data and measured data, 12 causative factors are selected from four aspects: terrain and landforms, land use, meteorology and hydrology, and population and economy. A combined qualitative and quantitative method is employed to analyze the relationship between flash floods and triggering factors, and to calibrate the parameters of the RTI (Rainfall Threshold Index) model. Meanwhile, machine learning is introduced to quantify the contribution of different causative factors and identify key causative factors of flash floods. Based on this, a parameter η coupling the causative mechanism is proposed to optimize the RTI method, and develop a framework for calculating county-level critical rainfall thresholds. The results show that: (1) Extreme rainfall, elevation, slope, and other factors are direct triggers of flash floods, and the high-risk areas for flash floods are mainly concentrated in the northeast and southeast of Yunnan Province. (2) The intraday rainfall has the highest correlation with the accumulated rainfall of the previous ten days; the critical cumulative rainfall ranges from 50 mm to 400 mm. (3) The county-level critical rainfall threshold for Yunnan Province is relatively accurate. These findings will provide theoretical references for improving flash flood early warning methods. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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17 pages, 10437 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Comparative Analysis of Flood Prevention and Control at LID Facilities with Runoff and Flooding as Control Objectives Based on InfoWorks ICM

by Xinyue Cheng, Hao Wang, Bin Chen, Zhi Li and Jinjun Zhou

Water 2024, 16(3), 374; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16030374 - 23 Jan 2024

Cited by 1 | Viewed by 753

Abstract

Climate change and urbanization have led to an increase in the amount of water flowing into traditional drainage systems, which results in frequent urban flooding. Low–Impact Development (LID) facilities, with their distributed feature, are one of the important means to mitigate flooding and have been widely used. In this paper, based on integrated catchment management (ICM), we compare the abatement of runoff, flooding, and ponding under two durations of rainfall and eight different return periods with runoff as the control objective (RACO) and flooding as the control objective (FACO) for the deployment of LID facilities. The waterlogged area of FACO is higher by a range of 92.462 m² to 24,124.39 m² compared to RACO. Both percentage reduction of overflow volume and runoff volume tend to decrease gradually with the increase in the return period. For the percentage reduction of runoff volume per unit area, sometimes RACO is greater than FACO, and sometimes vice versa, while for the percentage reduction of overflow volume per unit area, the range where FACO exceeds RACO is between 0.29 to 10.95 (%/ha). The cost of FACO has decreased by 4.94% to 46.20% compared to RACO. This shows that FACO’s LID deployment method can fully utilize the capacity of LID facilities to mitigate inundation, reducing the cost of LID facilities to a certain extent. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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13 pages, 2575 KiB

Open AccessArticle

A Study on the Evolution of Urban Underlying Surfaces and Extreme Rainfall in the Pearl River Delta

by Tianyin Xu, Zhiyong Yang, Xichao Gao and Jinjun Zhou

Water 2024, 16(2), 267; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16020267 - 12 Jan 2024

Viewed by 800

Abstract

Problems such as the expansion of impervious areas and changes in underlying surfaces have occurred in cities due to rapid urbanization, along with an increasing probability of extreme rainfall. Based on the normalized building index (NDBI) of underlying surfaces, calculated from remote sensing images in the Pearl River Delta from 1990 to 2020, this study determines the underlying surface changes in the Pearl River Delta. Based on the hourly rainfall data of meteorological stations in the Pearl River Delta region from 1990 to 2020, the extreme rainfall indexes are calculated to analyze the changes in extreme rainfall in the Pearl River Delta. Based on the NDBI of underlying surfaces and extreme rainfall calculated in the Pearl River Delta, the evolution of underlying surfaces and extreme rainfall is analyzed, as is the correlation between them, and the main conclusions are as follows: (1) From 1990 to 2020, the NDBI in highly urbanized areas in the Pearl River Delta was higher than that in non-highly urbanized areas. The NDBI in highly urbanized areas showed an increasing trend, and the growth rate tended to slow down; (2) From 1990 to 2020, extreme rainfall in highly urbanized areas of the Pearl River Delta was higher than in non-highly urbanized areas. Extreme rainfall in both highly urbanized areas and non-highly urbanized areas showed an increasing trend, with that in highly urbanized areas increasing faster; (3) The positive correlation between the NDBI and extreme rainfall indicators in highly urbanized areas is more significant than that in non-highly urbanized areas. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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17 pages, 5151 KiB

Open AccessArticle

Innovative and Reliable Assessment of Polluted Stormwater Runoff for Effective Stormwater Management

by Sara Todeschini

Water 2024, 16(1), 16; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16010016 - 20 Dec 2023

Viewed by 776

Abstract

This article examines the pollution dynamics in urban wet-weather runoff, addressing the statistical characterization and systematic classification of water quality characteristics as key aspects of sustainable and effective urban stormwater quality control and treatment measures. A reliable first flush methodology is applied to discrete water quality data of different pollution parameters from an Italian database for the identification of the Bivio Vela catchment’s representative evolution of mean concentrations and the assessment of the required runoff volume to reduce stormwater pollutant concentrations to background levels. A comparison is carried out between results from two catchments with different land use types (industrial versus residential) and the complexity of the sewerage system, highlighting challenges in tracking pollution trends and delineating peculiar dynamics of different quality parameters in a specific geographic context. Despite appreciably different pollutant dynamics, both catchments achieve background levels for all the examined parameters after 6 mm runoff. The outcome of the analysis has clear implications for the design approach of sustainable stormwater management practices. Full article

(This article belongs to the Special Issue Urban Flood Mitigation and Sustainable Stormwater Management)

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