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Nature-Based Solutions for Rainwater Management in the Urban Environment
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Nature-Based Solutions for Rainwater Management in the Urban Environment

A special issue of Water (ISSN 2073-4441). This special issue belongs to the section "Urban Water Management".

Deadline for manuscript submissions: closed (20 January 2024) | Viewed by 11402

Special Issue Editors

Prof. Dr. Luca Giovanni Lanza

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering (DICCA), University of Genova, 1 Montallegro, 16145 Genova GE, Italy
Interests: hydrology; precipitation; measurement; green roofs; nature-based solutions; sustainable urban drainage
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals
Dr. Arianna Cauteruccio

E-Mail Website
Guest Editor
Department of Civil, Chemical and Environmental Engineering (DICCA), University of Genova, 1 Montallegro, 16145 Genova, GE, Italy
Interests: hydrology; accuracy of atmospheric precipitation measurements; fluid dynamics and environmental engineering; pluvial flooding; sustainable urban drainage
Special Issues, Collections and Topics in MDPI journals

Special Issue Information

Dear Colleagues,

Nature-based solutions (NBS) used in sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS) exploit natural techniques to control runoff formation. They are based on the restoration of fundamental hydrological processes (interception, evapotranspiration, and infiltration) that are compromised or strongly limited in the urban areas, with resulting critical conditions in urban drainage networks, pluvial floodings, and the pollution of the receiving water bodies. NBSs are also useful to increase rainwater harvesting and to control thermal energy fluxes in indoor and outdoor urban areas.

Research is still needed to define and quantify suitable performance indicators to assess the effect of the NBS on the resilience of modern cities, especially in areas where the rainfall climatology is most challenging, being characterized by short-duration high-intensity events separated by long dry periods.

We welcome research contributions employing experimental and numerical/analytical methods, the former based for instance on the verification of the hydraulic and hydrological performance of different NBSs on dedicated laboratory testbeds and/or field installations, the latter based on rainfall–runoff models and on numerical simulations of the hydraulic behavior of urban drainage solutions.

Prof. Dr. Luca Giovanni Lanza
Dr. Arianna Cauteruccio
Guest Editors

Manuscript Submission Information

Manuscripts should be submitted online at www.mdpi.com by registering and logging in to this website. Once you are registered, click here to go to the submission form. Manuscripts can be submitted until the deadline. All submissions that pass pre-check are peer-reviewed. Accepted papers will be published continuously in the journal (as soon as accepted) and will be listed together on the special issue website. Research articles, review articles as well as short communications are invited. For planned papers, a title and short abstract (about 100 words) can be sent to the Editorial Office for announcement on this website.

Submitted manuscripts should not have been published previously, nor be under consideration for publication elsewhere (except conference proceedings papers). All manuscripts are thoroughly refereed through a single-blind peer-review process. A guide for authors and other relevant information for submission of manuscripts is available on the Instructions for Authors page. Water is an international peer-reviewed open access semimonthly journal published by MDPI.

Please visit the Instructions for Authors page before submitting a manuscript. The Article Processing Charge (APC) for publication in this open access journal is 2600 CHF (Swiss Francs). Submitted papers should be well formatted and use good English. Authors may use MDPI's English editing service prior to publication or during author revisions.

Keywords

  • urban hydrology
  • nature-based solutions
  • sustainable urban drainage
  • resilient cities
  • stormwater management
  • low impact development
  • green roofs
  • rainwater harvesting

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Published Papers (4 papers)

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Research

13 pages, 13208 KiB  
Article
Optimizing Local Materials in Green Roofs Through Citizen Science Activities at a Primary School in Azores
by Rita Teixeira, Inês Flores-Colen, Diogo Oliveira and Cristina Matos Silva
Water 2024, 16(20), 2998; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16202998 - 21 Oct 2024
Viewed by 693
Abstract
Green roofs are a fundamental technology in the transformation of urban centers into more sustainable environments, with a positive impact on buildings, cities, and their inhabitants. Yet, green roof technology may require the use of materials with a high environmental impact, namely, when [...] Read more.
Green roofs are a fundamental technology in the transformation of urban centers into more sustainable environments, with a positive impact on buildings, cities, and their inhabitants. Yet, green roof technology may require the use of materials with a high environmental impact, namely, when associated with large transport distances. The present work arises from the need to find an environmental solution to use in an eco-school on one of the Azores islands. It tests green roofs on a wooden structure using local and sustainable materials. Prototypes were built to monitor their performance and to complement the theoretical information investigated regarding the construction systems of green roofs with alternative materials. The installation of the prototypes was accompanied by the school community, and the performance was monitored. The pumice stone proved to be an efficient solution for the drainage layer of the green roof. The use of local soil (volcanic origin) instead of a commercial substrate proved to work properly, both for drainage and for vegetation growth. Finally, the results also contribute to a better understanding of green roofs on wooden structures and encourage the use of local materials in future projects, with a view towards a circular economy. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nature-Based Solutions for Rainwater Management in the Urban Environment)
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21 pages, 5098 KiB  
Article
Potential of Decentral Nature-Based Solutions for Mitigation of Pluvial Floods in Urban Areas—A Simulation Study Based on 1D/2D Coupled Modeling
by Jonas Neumann, Christian Scheid and Ulrich Dittmer
Water 2024, 16(6), 811; https://doi.org/10.3390/w16060811 - 8 Mar 2024
Cited by 3 | Viewed by 1643
Abstract
Urban drainage systems are generally designed to handle rainfall events only up to a certain intensity or volume. With climate change, extreme events that exceed the design storms and consequently result in flooding are occurring more frequently. Nature-based solutions (NBSs) have the potential [...] Read more.
Urban drainage systems are generally designed to handle rainfall events only up to a certain intensity or volume. With climate change, extreme events that exceed the design storms and consequently result in flooding are occurring more frequently. Nature-based solutions (NBSs) have the potential to reduce the pressure on urban drainage systems and to increase their resilience. This study presents an approach to compare and evaluate the effectiveness of NBSs for flood mitigation using a coupled 1D/2D model of surface and sewer flow. The study analyzes the effect of infiltration systems (dimensioned to return periods of T = 5 and 100 years), various green roofs, and tree pits considering the different degrees of implementation. The NBSs are represented as LID elements according to SWMM. As expected, the mitigation effect of NBSs declines with increasing rainfall intensities. However, infiltration systems dimensioned to T = 100 years achieve almost three times the flood reduction compared to systems dimensioned to T = 5 years, even during extremely heavy rainfall events (100 mm), resulting in a reduced total flood volume of 15.1% to 25.8%. Overall, green roofs (excluding extensive green roofs) provide the most significant flood reduction (33.5%), while tree locations have the least effect. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nature-Based Solutions for Rainwater Management in the Urban Environment)
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20 pages, 1029 KiB  
Article
Stormwater Green Infrastructure Resilience Assessment: A Social-Ecological Framework for Urban Stormwater Management
by Leila Mosleh, Masoud Negahban-Azar and Mitchell Pavao-Zuckerman
Water 2023, 15(9), 1786; https://doi.org/10.3390/w15091786 - 6 May 2023
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 4628
Abstract
Urban areas are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Stormwater Green infrastructure (SWGI) is seen as an approach to increase the climate resilience of urban areas, because they can buffer precipitation changes brought on by climate change. However, SWGI features themselves [...] Read more.
Urban areas are increasingly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Stormwater Green infrastructure (SWGI) is seen as an approach to increase the climate resilience of urban areas, because they can buffer precipitation changes brought on by climate change. However, SWGI features themselves need to be resilient to climate change to be able to contribute to the resilience of cities. Thus, we aimed to develop a SWGI resilience assessment framework that could be used to identify challenges and to inform decisionmakers’ efforts to enhance resilience. We developed a resilience assessment framework based upon a resilience matrix approach to recognize effective resilience categories for SWGI by reviewing the literature on critical functionality and barriers to implementation and operation. These categories for SWGI included policy, design, maintenance, economic factors and social factors that influence SWGI functionality. We then identified specific aspects under each category that could be used for assessing SWGI resilience, recognizing that SWGI has critical functionalities and factors controlling its viability. Unlike other SWGI assessment frameworks that are focused on ecosystem services as a final outcome, we worked from a socio-ecological perspective in order to include socio-economic and policy factors and design and planning aspects that affect service provision. Developing a resilience assessment framework is critical for management because it can reveal the specific challenges facing SWGI resilience that have traditionally been overlooked, such as maintenance and social factors. This specific framework can also lead to efficient planning and management by identifying interrelations and hierarchical relationships of categories that influence resilience. Application of this framework will rely upon expert input to connect broad dimensions with specific indicators for SWGI to local priorities in resilience planning. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nature-Based Solutions for Rainwater Management in the Urban Environment)
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16 pages, 2261 KiB  
Article
Rainwater Harvesting for Urban Landscape Irrigation Using a Soil Water Depletion Algorithm Conditional on Daily Precipitation
by Arianna Cauteruccio and Luca G. Lanza
Water 2022, 14(21), 3468; https://doi.org/10.3390/w14213468 - 30 Oct 2022
Cited by 4 | Viewed by 2748
Abstract
The supply of various non-potable water usages based on the harvesting and management of rainwater in urban areas allows to save high-quality water resources for strictly potable use and to limit the squandering of precious freshwater resources. A rainwater harvesting system included in [...] Read more.
The supply of various non-potable water usages based on the harvesting and management of rainwater in urban areas allows to save high-quality water resources for strictly potable use and to limit the squandering of precious freshwater resources. A rainwater harvesting system included in a reconversion project of a former military area located in the town of Genova (Italy) is examined. Rainwater is collected and used for the landscape irrigation of public areas. Three rainwater collection scenarios are considered while varying the size of the storage tank, using daily rainfall data from a local long-term record as the reference rainfall climatology. A behavioural model is adopted to simulate the operation of the rainwater harvesting system and improved with a dedicated algorithm to account for the actual soil water availability for the vegetation and its temporal decay, based on the specific soil type and vegetation. For each scenario/tank size combination, reliability indices are calculated and compared, while the detention time and the annual usage volume per unit tank capacity are used as indicators of water quality deterioration in the tank and the economic benefit associated with the exploitation of the resource. The best solution in terms of rainwater collection scenario and tank size is identified. Full article
(This article belongs to the Special Issue Nature-Based Solutions for Rainwater Management in the Urban Environment)
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