Building urban flood resilience with rainwater management

Abstract

Urban stormwater is a significant hazard and a promising resource. Recent studies have highlighted that effective and smart rainwater management provides both flood and drought mitigation benefits through capturing extreme rainfall and contributing to water demands at the property scale [1], indicating opportunities to upscale benefits across urban areas. However, for stormwater management to reach this potential, planners must move away from ad-hoc and localised application towards integrated catchment-wide strategies, capable of delivering catchment-wide benefits. New planning methodologies are required to achieve this shift and key questions remain regarding how strategies could be applied to maximise flood resilience, supply augmentation and cost-effectiveness across urban scales. This study responds to these emerging challenges through assessing the potential benefits of catchment-scale rainwater management across the Pandon Dene surface water catchment in Newcastle-upon Tyne, NE England.