Improving Urban Flood Resilience under Climate Change Scenarios in a Tropical Watershed Using Low-Impact Development Practices

Abstract

This paper shows how low-impact development (LID) practices affect the resilience of stormwater drainage system under climate change scenarios. A rainfall-runoff model was calibrated and evaluated a in a tropical watershed located in Midwestern Brazil. An ensemble of 17 general circulation model outputs forced by Representative Concentration Pathways (RCP 4.5 and RCP 8.5) was used to create future climate change scenarios up to 2095. The LID efficiency was evaluated based on the runoff peak reduction and the resilience of stormwater drainage by means of a resilience index. Overall, LID combinations showed a reduction in runoff peak higher than 20%, and the best LID combination had a reduction of as much as 46%. This represents a significant improvement in the resilience against flooding in the study area. Therefore, the findings can contribute to the increase in widespread adoption of LID and can encourage decisionmakers to provide such practices for urban flood management.