Future trajectories of urban drainage systems: A simple exploratory modeling approach for assessing socio-technical transitions

• Published in: The Science of the total environment 2019-02, Vol.651 (Pt 2), p.1709-1719
• Main Authors: Zischg, Jonatan, Rogers, Briony, Gunn, Alexander, Rauch, Wolfgang, Sitzenfrei, Robert
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Adoption curves; Exploratory modeling; Kiruna; Low Impact Development; Stakeholder involvement; Urban transition
• ISSN: 0048-9697; 1879-1026
• DOI: 10.1016/j.scitotenv.2018.10.061

In this work, we present a novel approach to explore future trajectories in urban drainage systems, emphasizing the adoption and implementation of sustainable ‘nature-based’ stormwater management strategies. The focus is on the development and long-term assessment of socio-technical pathways to create a multifunctional stormwater system at the city scale. The innovation is to identify and represent the socio-technical pathways by means of adoption curves for such transition processes. We combine urban planning policies and state-of-the-art urban engineering approaches with societal aspects and analyze them with traditional biophysical models (hydrologic-hydraulic sewer modeling). In doing so, different pathways from a current to a future system state are investigated under a variety of political, population and climate scenarios. Results allow for strategy screening by addressing the spatial and temporal implementation of decentralized stormwater control measures, to enable a successful transition to a sustainable future city. The model is applied to an ongoing transition of Kiruna, a city in Sweden, considering 36 different future trajectories over a transition period of 23 years. Results show that the trajectory of raingarden implementation under a sustainability policy can alleviate the adverse effects of urbanization (growth scenario). While this trajectory resulted in, for example, nearly the same sewer surcharge performance as that characterized by declining urbanization (stagnation) and a business-as-usual policy (with expected raingarden uptake rates approximately one-third lower), significantly better ecological performances (e.g. runoff treatment ratios up to 50%) are achieved. [Display omitted] •Investigating sustainability transitions by the creation of socio-technical pathways•Long-term planning of urban drainage systems under changing city landscapes•Integration of climate, population and policy uncertainties•High adoption of green infrastructure mitigates the adverse effects of urbanization.•Raingarden and sand filter designs show the best hydraulic and ecologic performance.