Sustainable drainage system

Sustainable drainage systems (also known as SuDS,Sustainable Drainage System (SuDs) for Stormwater Management: A Technological and Policy Intervention to Combat Diffuse Pollution
Sharma, D., 2008 SUDS, or sustainable urban drainage systems) are a collection of water management practices that aim to align modern drainage systems with natural water processes and are part of a larger green infrastructure strategy. SuDS efforts make urban drainage systems more compatible with components of the natural water cycle such as storm surge overflows, soil percolation, and bio-filtration. These efforts hope to mitigate the effect human development has had or may have on the natural water cycle, particularly surface runoff and water pollution trends.

SuDS have become popular in recent decades as our understanding of how urban development affects natural environments, as well as concern for climate change and sustainability, have increased. SuDS often use built components that mimic natural features in order to integrate urban drainage systems into the natural drainage systems or a site as efficiently and quickly as possible. SUDS infrastructure has become a large part of the Blue-Green Cities demonstration project in Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

History of drainage systems

Drainage systems have been found in ancient cities over 5,000 years old, including Minoan, Indus, Persian, and Mesopotamian civilizations. These drainage systems focused mostly on reducing nuisances from localized flooding and waste water. Rudimentary systems made from brick or stone channels constituted the extent of urban drainage technologies for centuries. Cities in Ancient Rome also employed drainage systems to protect low-lying areas from excess rainfall. When builders began constructing aqueducts to import fresh water into cities, urban drainage systems became integrated into water supply infrastructure for the first time as a unified urban water cycle.

Modern drainage systems did not appear until the 19th century in Western Europe, although most of these systems were primarily built to deal with sewage issues rising from rapid urbanization. One such example is that of the London sewerage system, which was constructed to combat massive contamination of the River Thames. At the time, the River Thames was the primary component of London's drainage system, with human waste concentrating in the waters adjacent to the densely populated urban center. As a result, several epidemics plagued London's residents and even members of Parliament, including events known as the 1854 Broad Street cholera outbreak and the Great Stink of 1858. The concern for public health and quality of life launched several initiatives, which ultimately led to the creation of London's modern sewerage system designed by Joseph Bazalgette. This new system explicitly aimed to ensure waste water was redirected as far away from water supply sources as possible in order to reduce the threat of waterborne pathogens. Since then, most urban drainage systems have aimed for similar goals of preventing public health crises.

Within past decades, as climate change and urban flooding have become increasingly urgent challenges, drainage systems designed specifically for environmental sustainability have become more popular in both academia and practice. The first sustainable drainage system to utilize a full management train including source control in the UK was the Oxford services motorway station designed by SuDS specialists Robert Bray Associates Originally the term SUDS described the UK approach to sustainable urban drainage systems. These developments may not necessarily be in "urban" areas, and thus the "urban" part of SuDS is now usually dropped to reduce confusion. Other countries have similar approaches in place using a different terminology such as best management practice (BMP) and low-impact development in the United States, water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) in Australia, low impact urban design and development (LIUDD) in New Zealand, and comprehensive urban river basin management in Japan.

Background

Traditional urban drainage systems are limited by various factors including volume capacity, damage or blockage from debris and contamination of drinking water. Many of these issues are addressed by SuDS systems by bypassing traditional drainage systems altogether and returning rainwater to natural water sources or streams as soon as possible. Increasing urbanisation has caused problems with increased flash flooding after sudden rain. As areas of vegetation are replaced by concrete, asphalt, or roofed structures, leading to impervious surfaces, the area loses its ability to absorb rainwater. This rain is instead directed into surface water drainage systems, often overloading them and causing floods.

The goal of all sustainable drainage systems is to use rainfall to recharge the water sources of a given site. These water sources are often underlying the water table, nearby streams, lakes, or other similar freshwater sources. For example, if a site is above an unconsolidated aquifer, then SuDS will aim to direct all rain that falls on the surface layer into the underground aquifer as quickly as possible. To accomplish this, SuDS use various forms of permeable layers to ensure the water is not captured or redirected to another location. Often these layers include soil and vegetation, though they can also be artificial materials.

The paradigm of SuDS solutions should be that of a system that is easy to manage, requiring little or no energy input (except from environmental sources such as sunlight, etc.), resilient to use, and being environmentally as well as aesthetically attractive. Examples of this type of system are basins (shallow landscape depressions that are dry most of the time when it's not raining), rain gardens (shallow landscape depressions with shrub or herbaceous planting), swales (shallow normally-dry, wide-based ditches), filter drains (gravel filled trench drain), bioretention basins (shallow depressions with gravel and/or sand filtration layers beneath the growing medium), reed beds and other wetland habitats that collect, store, and filter dirty water along with providing a habitat for wildlife.

A common misconception of SuDS is that they reduce flooding on the development site. In fact the SuDS is designed to reduce the impact that the surface water drainage system of one site has on other sites. For instance, sewer flooding is a problem in many places. Paving or building over land can result in flash flooding. This happens when flows entering a sewer exceed its capacity and it overflows. The SuDS system aims to minimise or eliminate discharges from the site, thus reducing the impact, the idea being that if all development sites incorporated SuDS then urban sewer flooding would be less of a problem. Unlike traditional urban stormwater drainage systems, SuDS can also help to protect and enhance ground water quality.

Example features

Because SuDS describe a collection of systems with similar components or goals, there is a large crossover between SuDS and other terminologies dealing with sustainable urban development. The following are examples generally accepted as components in a SuDS system:

Bioswales

Permeable pavement

Wetlands

Artificial wetlands can be constructed in areas that see large volumes of storm water surges or runoff. Built to replicate shallow marshes, wetlands as BMPs gather and filter water at scales larger than bioswales or rain gardens. Unlike bioswales, artificial wetlands are designed to replicate natural wetlands processes as opposed to having an engineered mechanism within the artificial wetland. Because of this, the ecology of the wetland (soil components, water, vegetation, microbes, sunlight processes, etc.) becomes the primary system to remove pollutants. Water in an artificial wetland tends to be filtered slowly in comparison to systems with mechanized or explicitly engineered components.

Wetlands can be used to concentrate large volumes of runoff from urban areas and neighborhoods. In 2012, the South Los Angeles Wetlands Park was constructed in a densely populated inner-city district as a renovation for a former LA Metro bus yard. The park is designed to capture runoff from surrounding surfaces as well as storm water overflow from the city's current drainage system.
Detention basins

Green roofs

See also

*Water-sensitive urban design
*Low-impact development (U.S. and Canada)
* Aquifer storage and recovery
*Detention basin
*Drainage system (disambiguation)
* French drain
*Rain garden
* Resin-bound paving
*Retention basin
*Sponge city
*Stream restoration
* Sustainable city
*Urban runoff
* Tree box filter

References

External links

SUDS solutions from the British Geological SurveyInternational Best Management Practices Database
– Detailed data sets & summaries on performance of Urban BMPs
Portland Guide to Sustainable Stormwater
– City of Portland, Oregon

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems
Drainage
Environmental engineering
Hydrology and urban planning
Drainage system
Sustainable design
Waste treatment technology
Water pollution
Sustainable urban planning