Modelling to support the planning of sustainable urban water systems

Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) is commonly employed to restore urban water systems back to pre-developed conditions and can provide multiple benefits. However, WSUD planning is a challenging task that involves multidisciplinary effort to deal with highly complex and uncertain futures. Hence, an integrated approach is required to address this task with a high level of scientific rigour. This paper introduces an integrated modelling tool – UrbanBEATS (Urban Biophysical Environments And Technologies Simulator) which supports the planning and development of sustainable urban water strategies. Initially developed to plan WSUD stormwater infrastructure for management of runoff, pollution and stormwater harvesting, UrbanBEATS’ ecosystem is currently being extended and includes, among others, three new modules, which are introduced in this paper: (1) uptake, needs and suitability assessment module for simulating the behaviour of the main actors in urban stormwater management to assess uptake, suitability and needs for WSUD technologies; (2) mapping of water pollution emissions, linking detailed information of the urban form and land use with stormwater pollution algorithms (allowing identification of pollution hotspots within the catchment to guide pollution management strategies); and (3) a novel cellular automata fast flood evaluation model known as CA-ffé for the rapid prediction of inundation extent, depths and flood risks in urban areas (including assessment of the WSUD benefits for reducing flood damages).