Evaluating the Role of Urban Drainage Flaws in Triggering Cascading Effects on Critical Infrastructure, Affecting Urban Resilience

Abstract

The urban drainage system plays an important role in the urban infrastructure resilience discussion. Its functional failures can trigger cascading effects on other urban systems and critical infrastructures. The main aim of this work is to investigate and quantify urban flood resilience, offering an integrated methodological approach. In this process, the flooding consequences were quantified by hydrodynamic simulations, using a case study in an exploratory research method. A set of indicators was proposed to map the cascading effects generated by floods and the consequent quantification of urban flooding resilience. Two simulation scenarios were proposed to validate the methodological assessment framework proposed in this work. The first scenario represented the current flooding situation and showed the negative effects on the city systems resulting from disordered urban growth. The second scenario considered the improvement of the drainage behavior, considering a sustainable urban drainage approach supported by the concept of blue-green infrastructure integrated with the urban open spaces system. A comprehensive flood resilience assessment over time was conducted by analyzing the evolution of the System Integrity Index on both scenarios. The results showed that water dynamics play an important role in ordering land use and that preserving water spaces can efficiently respond to urban developing threats, dealing with floods in an earlier development moment, proving the importance of the drainage system as a preliminary structuring driver for supporting a sustainable urban planning, ordered according to environmental constraints defined by water dynamics.

Building Resilient Cities: A Comprehensive Review of Climate Change Adaptation Indicators for Urban Design

“…Flood risk was studied in 17 of the 91 articles considered. These studies are categorized into coastal flooding (n = 8) [16,17,29,36,45,47,75,84], pluvial flooding (n = 6) [68,77,85,87,90], and urban drainage (n = 3) [55,61,65]. Flood reports concentrate the knowledge on the vulnerability (Vulnerabilityy: predisposition to be adversely affected.…”

A GIS-Based Index of Physical Susceptibility to Flooding as a Tool for Flood Risk Management

“…For the Acari River basin (Figure 11), the regions highlighted by the index did not show satisfactory correspondence concerning the flood spots resulting from the mathematical modeling. The basin is highly modified and waterproofed, including several inadequate works, which restrict flows (strangulated passages under bridges, bridges with excess pillars in the gutter, galleries with singularities and narrowing sections) and aggravate flooding in several regions of the watershed [8,9,67].…”

“…Although flood events are a natural phenomenon usually responsible for a series of ecosystem services [7], their interactions with urban aspects, such as population increase in susceptible areas and urban sprawl, tend to explain the escalation of associated negative impacts. In developing countries, cities may continue to occupy floodplains without proper urban planning and reproducing a hygienist approach in stormwater systems [8]. Failures in drainage systems functioning in urban areas directly affect daily routines and may promote disruption and losses in a series of urban systems such as housing, energy, water supply, sewage, mobility, community facilities and economy, among others, creating a cascade of effects [8,9].…”

“…In developing countries, cities may continue to occupy floodplains without proper urban planning and reproducing a hygienist approach in stormwater systems [8]. Failures in drainage systems functioning in urban areas directly affect daily routines and may promote disruption and losses in a series of urban systems such as housing, energy, water supply, sewage, mobility, community facilities and economy, among others, creating a cascade of effects [8,9].…”

Evaluation of the Use of Permeable Interlocking Concrete Pavement in Chile: Urban Infrastructure Solution for Adaptation and Mitigation against Climate Change

“…The exceedance of stormwater management capacity in cities due to the growth and waterproofing of soils causes urban flooding, directly affecting users within residential, commercial, and industrial areas [14,15]. Furthermore, cities currently lack a variety of stormwater drainage uses, such as irrigating a city's green areas, thus allowing these ecosystems to capture more CO2 and providing landscape benefits that improve the quality of human life thanks to the process of photosynthesis [16][17][18][19].…”