Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Water-sensitive urban design
Summary
Water-sensitive urban design (WSUD) is a land planning and engineering design approach which integrates the urban water cycle, including stormwater, groundwater, and wastewater management and water supply, into urban design to minimise environmental degradation and improve aesthetic and recreational appeal. WSUD is a term used in the Middle East and Australia and is similar to low-impact development (LID), a term used in the United States; and Sustainable Drainage System (SuDS), a term used in the United Kingdom.
Traditional urban and industrial development alters landscapes from permeable vegetated surfaces to a series of impervious interconnected surfaces resulting in large quantities of stormwater runoff, requiring management. Like other industrialized countries, including the United States and the United Kingdom, Australia has treated stormwater runoff as a liability and nuisance, endangering human health and property. This resulted in a strong focus on the design of stormwater management systems that rapidly convey stormwater runoff directly to streams with little or no focus on ecosystem preservation. This management approach results in what is referred to as urban stream syndrome. Heavy rainfall flows rapidly into streams carrying pollutants and sediments washed off from impervious surfaces, resulting in streams carrying elevated concentrations of pollutants, nutrients, and suspended solids. Increased peak flow also alters channel morphology and stability, further proliferating sedimentation and drastically reducing biotic richness.
Increased recognition of urban stream syndrome in the 1960s resulted in some movement toward holistic stormwater management in Australia. Awareness increased greatly during the 1990s with the Federal government and scientists cooperating through the Cooperative Research Centre program. Increasingly city planners have recognised the need for an integrated management approach to potable, waste, and stormwater management, to enable cities to adapt and become resilient to the pressure which population growth, urban densification and climate change places on ageing and increasingly expensive water infrastructure.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.
Ontological neighbourhood
Related courses (9)
ENV-526: Climate and water sensitive urban design
This project-based course introduces students to the field of urban climate and hydrology, with a focus on nature-based solutions for the design of climate and water resilient cities.
ENV-417: Urban hydrology
Ce cours en hydrologie urbaine aborde la gestion de l'eau urbaine d'un point de vue global, incluant notamment les impacts des rejets pluviaux sur les milieux récepteurs. Des solutions concrètes de ge
CIVIL-413: Urban hydraulic systems
Sustainable freshwater and urban drainage system are considered.
For fresh water, the capture, reservoir and net are discussed.
For the drainage, hydrology as well as the individual conduit and manh