Document Type : Review
Authors
1
Civil Engineering/ Sharif University of Technology
2
Bachelor's student, Department of Civil Engineering, Sharif University of Technology, Tehran, Iran.
3
Assistant Professor, Department of Urban Management and Urban Engineering, University of Tehran, Tehran, Iran.
4
Master's graduate, Department of Water Engineering Sciences, Faculty of Agriculture, University of Sciences and Research, Tehran, Iran.
5
Postdoctoral Researcher, Systems Engineering, Morgan State University, United States.
6
Professor, College of Interdisciplinary Sciences and Technologies, University of Tehran, Iran.
10.24200/j30.2024.64134.3307
Abstract
Urban development has resulted in an increase in impermeable surfaces, and consequently volume and peak discharge of surface runoff. In Addition, it perturbs the natural water cycle, including reduced pervious surfaces and increased surface runoff volume. Urban development dengenders multifaceted issues, encompassing urban flood, degradation of surface water and groundwater quality, and drop of groundwater levels. Conventional urban runoff management has usually adhered to a centralized approch, relying upon the construction of structural elements such as concrete channels to divert runoff. In recent decades, in order to diminish the deleterious impacts of urbanization, modern and decentralized methodologies have been introduced to mitigate the peak flow, volume, and pollution load of urban runoff by restoring the natural hydrological conditions before the urban development. In different contries around the world, these strategies have been introduced and implemented by different terminologies, such as low-impact development, green infrastructure, sustainable urban drainage systems, water-sensitive urban design and sponge cities. This research seeks to study the pioneering decentralized approaches of urban runoff management, introducing their benefits and compare their efficacy in controlling contaminated runoff. Moreover, the challenges and the limitations of each approache are discussed. By investigating the experiences of pioneering countries and sucseeful projects, the feasibility of deploying these strategies and also the optimal conditions for the implementation of each approach in the metropolises of Iran are precisely assessed. Decision-makers and urban planners can benefit from this research, in order to apply these approaches in Iranian cities, notably the expansive metropolis of Tehran. Reviewing the existing global and national experiences in this field shows that, in general, none of the Best Management Practices (BMPs) and Low Impact Developments (LIDs) techniques can alone meet all the goals of runoff management. Examining different scenarios of combining low-impact development methods using modeling is necessary to choose the most effective and economical scenario according to the characteristics of the study area. SWMM and SUSTAIN are among the widely used modeling tools in this field. Finally, the use of various decentralized techniques in each region should be based on observing all the technical principles and criteria related to their design, implementation, maintenance and exploitation. In this context, reviewing the guidelines of different regions of the world can be helpful, but local studies should be done to evaluate the effectiveness of the discussed approaches, especially in terms of reducing the types of pollutants present in the runoff entering the facility.
Keywords
Main Subjects
)