Low Impact Development practices in the context of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals: A new concept, lessons learned and challenges

Abstract

The increase in urbanization and climate change brings new challenges to the cities’ sustainability and resilience, mainly related to flood and drought events. Among these challenges, it can be highlighted the physical and health damage to the population, interruption of water, energy and food supply services, damage to basic infrastructure, economic losses and contamination of urban rivers. To contribute to the increase of resilience in urban centers, LID practices have been used as a new approach of mitigation and adaptation within urban drainage systems, aiming at runoff retention, peak flow attenuation, pollutant removal and ecosystem services restoration (e.g., resources recycling, carbon sequestration, thermal comfort and landscape integration). These different mitigation purposes and complementary benefits provided by LID practices can be related to the different Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) presented by the United Nations (UN), to achieve countries’ systemic sustainability. The identification of local techniques that contribute to the different SDG helps to achieve their territorialization and application as public policy. Therefore, this paper presents a literature review, categorizing the studies into different generations based on their main application purpose and presents a linkage of the LID benefits to different SDG. Some challenges were identified requiring further investigation, such as the need to identify and quantify the energy demands for LID practices maintenance and their incorporation in the system final energy balance, identification of processes that contribute to carbon sequestration and emission, and risks of emerging pollutants for human health from water reuse and nutrient cycling for sustainable agriculture.

Graphical abstract

Keywords:

• Carbon sequestration
• climate change
• resilience
• stormwater harvesting
• water-energy-food nexus

Additional information

Funding

This study was supported by CAPES grant n. 88887.091743/2014-01 (ProAlertas CEPED/USP), CNPq grant n. 465501/2014-1 and FAPESP grant n. 2014/50848-9 INCT-II (Climate Change, Water Security), CNPq grant n. PQ 312056/2016-8 (EESC-USP/CEMADEN/MCTIC) and CAPES PROEX (PPGSHS EESC USP), FAPESP grant n. 2015/20979-7 “Optimization of operation and maintenance of LID practices in subtropical climates”, FAPESP grant n. 2017/15614-5 “Decentralized Urban Runoff Recycling Facility addressing the security of the Water-Energy-Food Nexus”.