An SDG-based framework for assessing urban stormwater management systems

Abstract

Nature-Based Solutions for stormwater management on top of handling water should, ideally, deliver a multitude of other services to society; they are often seen as a lever for transforming cities in a more livable, green, resilient and sustainable direction, and these measures should be acknowledged as part of the services delivered. In this study we assess the services that Nature-Based Solutions for stormwater management deliver with reference to targets and indicators from the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals; we also develop local, project level indicators that inform and are informed by the more broad Sustainable Development Goals indicators. We demonstrate through Danish cases ranging from lot to city scale that the proposed framework can help inform decision-makers about the sustainability of Nature-Based Solutions for stormwater management. Despite difficulties in matching local indicators to SDG indicators, this first attempt at an assessment framework provides insight on which services of a project help to work towards the Sustainable Development Goals and, if used in the planning phase, could facilitate the design of projects that work focused and informed towards achieving the Sustainable Development Goals.

Principles for Distributing Infiltration-Based Stormwater Control Measures in Series

“…Green-field developments are often faced with strict requirements regarding the maximal discharge rate allowed and how often this may be exceeded [33]. Technically, it is simplest to dimension and construct one SCM at the catchment outlet [29], but distributing smaller SCMs within the catchment may offer more flexibility in positioning other elements such as buildings and roads (given that the SCM does not have to occupy a large area exactly at the catchment outlet point), and other added benefits such as dispersing amenity values throughout the catchment [7,14]. In this situation, the theoretical principles we propose can be used to determine d Baseline and quickly evaluate possible solutions for distributing part of the required SCM volume into smaller SCMs upstream in the catchment.…”

“…In a changing climate with increasing storm intensity, SCMs that remove water from existing stormwater systems are of special interest; these are typically SCMs that involve rainwater harvesting [5][6][7] or infiltration [7][8][9][10][11]. Further, SCMs may provide a range of ecosystem services to the urban environment beyond water management, such as increased biodiversity, aesthetics and microclimate regulation [8,[12][13][14].…”

“…In practice, SCM implementations where several SCMs overflow to one another within a small catchment are rather common [7,8,14]. These include within-cadaster cases where infiltration-ready depressions are connected through trenches and pipes to form a series of SCMs with a very large combined return level of overflow [8,14], as well as cases on a small neighborhood scale where also stretches of pipes are necessary to connect the different SCMs [7,14]. A feature common to both types of systems is that they function independently of a sewer system and that they are constructed such that overflow from upstream SCMs is purposefully directed to SCMs further downstream.…”

Integrating Concepts of Blue-green Infrastructure to Support Multidisciplinary Planning of Sustainable Cities

“…Sustainable urban development uses BGI to deliver maximum benefits for the provision and control of water quantity, quality, amenity, and biodiversity (Bacchin et al, 2016). The benefits of BGI to sustainable urban development were categorized under four broad domains: flood resilience, natural resources management, liveability, transition, and innovation (Sørup et al, 2019). Each type of approach to BGI emphasizes some of the listed benefit categories.…”

The SDGs, Ecosystem Services and Cities: A Network Analysis of Current Research Innovation for Implementing Urban Sustainability

“…The systems-based approach of UGI is well suited to the complexity and interconnected nature of the SDGs. UGI cuts across various goals and addresses multiple targets of the SDGs [26,[48][49][50].…”