Integrated sustainable flood-resilient urban drainage system for peri-urban areas: design, optimization, and performance evaluation

Project Abstract

This study presents the design, optimization, and performance evaluation of an integrated sustainable flood-resilient urban drainage system tailored for peri-urban areas vulnerable to rapid urbanization, intense rainfall, and surface runoff challenges. The research integrates hydrological modeling, hydraulic design, green infrastructure, and smart control strategies to mitigate flood risk, enhance groundwater recharge, and improve water quality while minimizing land and cost footprints. A multi-layered framework combines an urban catchment model with a dynamic drainage network optimization tool, enabling the simultaneous assessment of conventional gray infrastructure, nature-based solutions (bioswales, detention ponds, permeable pavements), and complementary technologies (real-time monitoring, adaptive gates, and rainwater harvesting). The methodology begins with high-resolution rainfall data and land-use mapping to construct a calibrated hydrological model that captures infiltration, interception, and delayed routing effects across heterogeneous peri-urban landscapes. Next, an optimization algorithm identifies cost-effective configurations that meet performance targets for peak discharge reduction, flood extents, and lifetime operational reliability under climate change scenarios. The hydraulic design emphasizes modularity and scalability, ensuring performance under urban growth while preserving urban amenity and biodiversity. A sustainability assessment evaluates hydraulic efficiency, cross-parameter interactions (soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and groundwater recharge), lifecycle costs, carbon footprint, and resilience indicators against extreme events. The study also investigates the socio-technical dimension, examining land-use conflicts, stakeholder acceptance, operation and maintenance requirements, and policy alignment to promote implementation in low- and middle-income peri-urban settings. Performance evaluation comprises grid-based hydraulic simulations, scenario analysis for different rainfall intensities, and sensitivity analyses to identify critical design drivers. Key indicators include peak flow attenuation, time-to-peak extension, runoff coefficients, storage volumes, pollutant removal efficiency, energy consumption, and maintenance needs. Results demonstrate that integrating green-blue corridors with adaptive control strategies yields superior flood mitigation with diminished land area requirements compared to traditional grey systems, while providing ancillary benefits such as urban heat island reduction, enhanced infiltration, and floodplain restoration potential. The optimized system exhibits robustness against parameter uncertainty and demonstrates adaptive performance under shifting rainfall regimes, offering a transferable blueprint for peri-urban contexts with heterogeneous soils and limited space. The discussion highlights practical design guidelines, cost-benefit trade-offs, and scalability considerations, outlining steps for pilot implementation, monitoring protocols, and decision-support tools for engineers and city planners. The research concludes with a set of actionable recommendations for policy-makers and practitioners to advance resilient, sustainable, and socially inclusive drainage solutions that harmonize flood risk management with urban development and environmental stewardship.

Project Overview

What This Project Is About

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A plain-language overview of the topic and what the project investigates.

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The Problem It Addresses

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What problem or gap this project tackles and why it matters to the field or society.

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Objectives of the Project

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1. Identify key drainage needs in peri-urban areas and set clear goals for resilience. 2. Explore design options that reduce flood risk while using sustainable materials. 3. Develop simple criteria to compare different drainage solutions. 4. Propose a plan for testing and evaluating performance under wet conditions.

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What You Will Do Step by Step

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1. Review basic concepts of drainage and flood resilience with plain explanations. 2. Gather data on local rainfall, land use, and existing drainage, using publicly available sources. 3. Create simple models or sketches of drainage layouts suitable for peri-urban settings. 4. Design evaluation criteria (safety, cost, maintenance) that are easy to measure. 5. Compare alternative designs using these criteria and pick the most practical option. 6. Develop a small-scale plan or simulations to test performance in rain scenarios. 7. Analyze results, noting strengths, limits, and real-world constraints. 8. Prepare a concise report with clear recommendations for future work.

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Expected Outcome

A practical, easy-to-understand design approach for flood-resilient urban drainage in peri-urban areas, with simple guidelines for implementation, maintenance, and performance assessment.