Storm water systems’ performance: assessment framework application to Portuguese water utilities

ABSTRACT

Performance assessment is recognized as an important management tool for urban water systems. This article describes the application of a performance assessment framework for storm water systems, in collaboration with two Portuguese urban water utilities. A performance assessment system was built for each water utility, including objectives, assessment criteria and performance metrics. The results showed the existence of areas vulnerable to flooding occurrences and the need for investment in rehabilitation. The application of the performance assessment framework supports the identification of systems’ vulnerabilities and priorities for intervention. Opportunities and suggestions for improving data collection procedures are identified.

KEYWORDS:

• Performance assessment
• performance metrics
• water management
• storm water systems
• water utility
• Portugal

Acknowledgements

The authors thank SMAS de Almada, particularly Luís Adão and Fernando Bacelar, and Águas de Coimbra, E.M., particularly Luís Costa and Telmo Paula, for their collaboration and valuable contribution to this study. The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of DHI for the provision of Mike Urban 2017 licence.

Author contributions

All authors contributed to the design and implementation of the developed performance assessment framework to the selected case studies, to the analysis of the results and to the writing of the manuscript.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Funding

The authors acknowledge financial support from the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia (FCT) for the PhD [grant numberPD/BD/114461/2016] under the doctoral programme H2Doc (‘Environmental Hydraulics and Hydrology’). This work was supported by the Fundação para a Ciência e Tecnologia [PD/BD/114461/2016].

Supplementary material

Supplemental data for this article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1080/07900627.2021.2004882.