Urban drainage and sustainable cities: how to achieve flood resilient societies?

Abstract

This paper tries to describe the main developments of urban flood forecasting and modelling. Currently, several new technologies are available for flood monitoring, modelling and mitigation and several paradigms suggest the adoption of greener approaches to urban storm water management. These tools and new approaches can be easily adaptable to new developments where the entire urban drainage system can be suited to follow a more sustainable way to drain storm water. The challenge for the future is instead aimed to apply this new philosophy to existing urban areas where the application of new tools and technologies requires high costs and such approaches have to be prepared by constructing a flood resilient society by means of education and capillary information.