Development of a geospatial data-based methodology for stormwater management in urban areas using freely-available software

Abstract

Intense urbanisation, combined with climate change impacts such as increased rainfall intensity, is overloading conventional drainage systems, increasing the number of combined sewer overflow events and making treatment plants outdated. There is a need for better urban planning, incorporating stormwater and flood management design in order to accurately design urban drainage networks. Geographic Information System (GIS) tools are capable of identifying and delineating the runoff flow direction, as well as accurately defining small-sized urban catchments using geospatial data. This study explores the synergies between GIS and stormwater management design tools for better land-use planning, providing a new methodology which has the potential to incorporate hydraulic and hydrological calculations into the design of urban areas. From data collection to final results, only freely available software and open platforms have been used: the U.S. EPA Storm Water Management Model (SWMM), QGis, PostgreSQL, PostGIS, SagaGIS, and GrassGIS. Each of these tools alone cannot provide all the necessary functionalities for large-scale projects, but once linked to GISWATER, a unique, fast, efficient, and accurate work methodology results. A case study of a newly urbanised area in the city of Gijón (northern Spain) has been utilised to apply this new methodology.