A multi-criteria risk-based approach for optimal planning of SuDS solutions in urban flood management

ABSTRACT

This paper presents a multi-criteria risk-based approach for managing urban flood hazards by using a combination of conventional measures and contemporary Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS). A multi-objective optimisation model coupled with a simulation model of UDS in the SWMM software is developed with the three objectives of minimising total costs, the risk of flooding and pollution discharged into receiving waters. K-means clustering technique is used to group the optimal solutions. A few optimal solutions and individual SuDS solutions are then ranked together by using the compromise programming (CP) method. The methodology is demonstrated by its application on a case study of the Golestan city UDS in Iran. The results obtained show there are indirect correlations between non-dominated solutions that minimise the risk of either flooding or pollution. The results also show the selected optimal solutions can provide cost-effective strategies that reduce both flood and pollution risks by at least 27% and 50%, respectively.

KEYWORDS:

• Compromise programming
• flood risk management
• multi-criteria decision making
• urban drainage systems

Acknowledgements

This work is supported by the Fellowship allocated to the second author. The authors wish to acknowledge this Fellowship that was supported by the Royal Academy of Engineering under the Leverhulme Trust Research Fellowships scheme. The authors also wish to thank the editor and the two anonymous reviewers for making constructive comments which substantially improved the quality of the paper.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).