Urban Flood Resilience in an Uncertain Future

该项目的工程核心结合了一系列精心挑选的基于物理学的模型，以支持调查雨水如何通过城市排水系统级联，不仅考虑了水的动态，还考虑了城市径流携带的沉积物，碎片，自然溶质和污染物。基于这套模型模拟城市系统中水流、储水和水质的能力，我们将研究如何通过添加蓝绿基础设施和可持续排水系统（SuDS）来改善灰色系统（主要由内衬渠道、管道和蓄水池组成）的性能，以创建旨在管理城市径流量和质量的处理列车。模型和设计解决方案将在改造（作为泰恩河畔纽卡斯尔城市更新和提升的一部分）和新建（作为肯特埃布斯弗利特“花园城市”创建的一部分）的背景下开发和测试。我们的目的是研究和展示如何使用蓝绿和灰色资产的集成系统来实现对洪水和干旱的抵御能力，无论未来气候如何变化，确保持续，长期的服务交付。这项工作将采用整个系统的观点，认识到与其他城市系统的相互依赖性，包括交通，能源和土地使用。这将确定将雨水作为一种资源加以管理的新机会，然后加以探索。这将增加使用蓝绿基础设施的多功能效益，通过提高水安全来管理洪水风险。可能的用途包括家庭或商业建筑中的非饮用水用途（基于雨水收集），灌溉绿色基础设施（例如行道树），管理粘土的沉降，土壤水分增加和地下水补给。更广泛的惠益可能包括利用排水基础设施（即微型水力发电）的地方能源生产以及加强城市水道和生态系统服务。开发的模型和协议将成为评估蓝色、绿色、灰色和智能基础设施优化组合潜力的基础，以在英国全国城市实现多重效益。然而，只有通过深入了解公民和社区在管理洪水风险方面的偏好，才能实现优化城市洪水和水资源管理的目标。简而言之，工程解决方案必须在所有空间尺度的城市规划和发展中得到更好的信息和明确的解释。出于这个原因，我们的研究将扩展到管理城市洪水风险管理的规划，发展和组织系统的调查。这将通过使用前瞻性行动研究和社会实践理论来研究公民和社区对洪水和水资源管理创新的态度和反应，并结合城市规划来解决。这方面的工作是必不可少的，以巩固和实现上述核心研究中确定的工程分析和解决方案。汇集工程，社会和规划项目组成部分的机制将是在泰恩河畔纽卡斯尔和肯特埃布斯弗利特的共同定位研究。这些案例研究城市的团队研究将确定如何克服创新障碍，尽管未来城市气候，土地使用，发展和政治领导力存在不确定性。在整个项目中，规划师、开发商和土地所有者的重要参与将反馈和告知工作的核心工程重点，并以当前城市基础设施观测站发展的趋势为基础，探索实现城市洪水复原力所需的创新变革的应对措施。

SummaryThe engineering core of this project couples an array of carefully selected, physics-based models to support investigation of how stormwater cascades through a city's drainage system, accounting for the dynamics of not just water, but also sediment, debris, natural solutes and contaminants carried by urban runoff. Based on the capability of this suite of models to simulate water flow, storage and quality within an urban system, we will investigate how the performance of grey systems (composed mainly of lined channels, pipes and detention tanks) can be improved by adding Blue-Green Infrastructure and Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS) to create treatment trains designed to manage both the quantity and quality of urban runoff. Models and design solutions will be developed and tested in the contexts of retro-fit (as part of urban renewal and uplift in Newcastle-upon-Tyne) and new build (as part of creation of a 'garden city' in Ebbsfleet, Kent). Our intent is to work out and demonstrate how resilience to floods and droughts can be achieved using integrated systems of Blue-Green and Grey assets, no matter how climate changes in future, assuring continuous, long term service delivery. The work will adopt throughout a whole systems perspective that recognises interdependencies with other urban systems, including transport, energy and land-use. This will identify new opportunities for managing stormwater as a resource that will then be explored. This will add to the multi-functional benefits of using Blue-Green infrastructure to manage flood risk by increasing water security. Possibilities range from non-potable uses in homes or commercial buildings (based on rainwater harvesting) to irrigating green infrastructure (e.g. street trees), managing subsidence in clay soils, soil moisture enhancement and groundwater recharge. Wider benefits may extend to local energy generation using drainage infrastructure (i.e. micro-hydropower) and enhancement of urban watercourses and ecosystem services. The models and protocols developed will form the basis for assessment of the potential for the optimised combinations of Blue, Green, Grey and smart infrastructure to deliver multiple-benefits in UK cities nationwide.However, the goal of optimising urban flood and water management can only be achieved through a deep understanding citizen and community preferences with respect to managing flood risk. In short, engineering solutions must be better informed and explicitly accounted for in urban planning and development at all spatial scales. For this reason, our research will extend to investigation of the planning, development and organisational systems that govern urban flood risk management. This will be addressed using Participatory Action Research and Social Practice Theory to examine the attitudes and responses of citizens and communities to innovation in flood and water management, with the context of urban planning. This aspect of the work is essential to underpin and enable implementation of the engineering analyses and solutions identified in the core research outlined above.The mechanism for bringing together engineering, social and planning components of the project will be co-location research in Newcastle-upon-Tyne and Ebbsfleet, Kent. Team research in these case study cities will establish how barriers to innovation can be overcome despite uncertainties in future urban climates, land-use, development and political leadership. Critical engagement with planners, developers and land-owners throughout the project will feed back and inform the core engineering focus of the work, building on the current trend towards the development of urban infrastructure observatories to explore responses to the innovative changes needed to achieve urban flood resilience.