Linking Urban Floods to Citizen Science and Low Impact Development in Poorly Gauged Basins under Climate Changes for Dynamic Resilience Evaluation

Abstract

Cities must develop actions that reduce flood risk in the face of extreme rainfall events. In this study, the dynamic resilience of the Gregorio catchment (São Carlos, Brazil) was assessed. The catchment lacks environmental monitoring and suffers from recurrent floods. The resilience curves were made considering the water depth in the drainage system as the performance index, obtained by simulations with SWMM and HEC-RAS. The calibration of the flood extension was performed using citizen science data. The contribution to increasing the dynamic resilience by implementing decentralized low impact development (LID) practices was also evaluated. For this purpose, bioretention cells were added to the SWMM simulations. The resilience curves were then calculated for the current and future climate scenario, with and without LID, for return periods of 5, 10, 50, and 100 years and duration of 30, 60, and 120 min. Intensity–duration–frequency curves (IDFs) updated by the regional climate model MIROC5 for 2050 and 2100 were used. The results showed a significant improvement in the system’s resilience for light storms and the current period due to LID practice interventions. Efficiencies were reduced for moderate and heavy storms with no significant drops in floodwater depth and resilience regardless of the scenario.

Keywords

• historical data source
• flood mapping
• poorly gauged catchments
• citizen science
• low impact development