Integrated SUSTAIN-SWMM-MCDM Approach for Optimal Selection of LID Practices in Urban Stormwater Systems

Amirhossein Nazari (), Abbas Roozbahani () and Seied Mehdy Hashemy Shahdany ()
Additional contact information
Amirhossein Nazari: University of Tehran
Abbas Roozbahani: Norwegian University of Life Sciences (NMBU)
Seied Mehdy Hashemy Shahdany: University of Tehran

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA), 2023, vol. 37, issue 9, No 22, 3769-3793

Abstract: Abstract Rapid urbanization has increased impervious areas, leading to a higher flood hazard across cities worldwide. Low Impact Development (LID) practices have shown efficacy in reducing urban runoff; nevertheless, choosing the best combinations in terms of implementation cost and performance is of great importance. The present study introduces a framework based on green infrastructure, multi-objective optimization, and decision support tools to determine the most cost-effective LID solutions. The Storm Water Management Model (SWMM) was employed for rainfall-runoff and hydraulic modeling in Region 1, District 11 of Tehran, Iran. Six scenarios of different combinations of LID practices were developed. The system for Urban Stormwater Treatment and Analysis Integration (SUSTAIN) was used to optimize and evaluate each scenario. The selected solutions were imported to the SWMM to evaluate the stormwater system performance. Then, two multi criteria decision making (MCDM) models, including TOPSIS and COPRAS, were employed to rank the scenarios based on four technical and economic criteria. Results showed that scenario 4, consisting of rain barrels, porous pavements, and vegetated swales, had the best performance under TOPSIS with a 7.68 million USD and reduced the runoff volume and peak flow by 20.77% and 19.2%, respectively. However, Under the COPRAS method, Scenario 2 with a combination of rain barrels, bio-retention cells, and vegetated swales showed higher performance than the other scenarios with 3.25 million USD and led to a 15% reduction in the runoff volume and 4.30% in the peak flow. The COPRAS method was more sensitive to cost weights and chose the most economical scenario as the ideal. However, Scenario 4 concluded to be more feasible due to spatial limitations in the study area. The proposed SWMM—SUSTAIN—MCDM framework could be helpful to decision-makers in the design, performance evaluation, cost estimation, and selection of optimal scenarios.

Keywords: Urban stormwater management; Low impact development (LID); SUSTAIN; SWMM; MCDM (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2023
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://link.springer.com/10.1007/s11269-023-03526-9 Abstract (text/html)
Access to the full text of the articles in this series is restricted.

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:spr:waterr:v:37:y:2023:i:9:d:10.1007_s11269-023-03526-9

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
http://www.springer.com/economics/journal/11269

DOI: 10.1007/s11269-023-03526-9

Access Statistics for this article

Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) is currently edited by G. Tsakiris

More articles in Water Resources Management: An International Journal, Published for the European Water Resources Association (EWRA) from Springer, European Water Resources Association (EWRA)
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().