A conceptual approach for evaluating the multiple benefits of urban flood management practices

This paper focuses on the spatial distribution of the dominant and relevant benefits of urban flood management based on context and location specific evaluations. The authors propose a methodology for assessing the benefits of Sustainable Drainage Systems that could be of use to practitioners for recognising trade-offs and co-optimise the multi-benefits of urban flood management practices.

The study concludes that while flood alleviation mainly accrues to adjacent undeveloped areas, wider benefits can spread beyond the owners of the undeveloped land, to businesses, single-family residents and road users, as well as wildlife species and Portland residents. The study recognises that incremental/cumulative benefits might accumulate non-linearly due to benefit interactions and changes in the significance with which each benefit is judged or desired by the recipient communities.

Journal of Flood Risk Management, September 2016. This document is available under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International licence.