A new web-based tool will make it easier to assess how nature-based rainwater management systems will affect water flows in urban areas.
Climate change and greater urbanization—together with more demands for sustainability and higher standards of living—have created a need for new and better rainwater management solutions in cities.
One approach is nature-based solutions (NBS) consisting of, for example, elements such as rain beds, soakaways, green roofs, or depressions in the landscape that can be used for the temporary storage of rainwater.
Over the next couple of years, DTU Environment and the company SCALGO will together develop a new tool to enable architects, engineers and town planners to identify the NBS elements which are particularly suitable for integration into the design of an urban area early on in the planning process.
Today, the design of rainwater management systems is often left to the last minute due to the very advanced calculations required. By that time, it is often not possible to make major infrastructural changes to project sites, which hampers the scope for using nature-based systems. The outcome may be more costly and less sustainable rainwater management solutions.
“We want to enable architects to see how the siting of various NBS elements will impact rainwater discharge and drainage from an area. The solution is a fast tool which in seconds can quantify the effects of siting rain beds i varying sizes in different places when it comes to, e.g., how often they are likely to overflow and the ensuing effect on local water flows,” explains postdoc Sara Maria Lerer from DTU Environment.
Practical application
Sara Maria Lerer has developed the concept behind the new tool as part of her PhD project, and shown that it works in practice. It was important to her that the tool should be able to make a difference ‘in the real world’. She therefore decided to invest her time and resources in finding a suitable partner which could design a professional user interface and be in charge of marketing the tool to potential end-users. When she first met Morten Revsbæk from SCALGO, they were both quick to see the potential of working together.
“Sara and her DTU colleagues shared our ambition of creating tools that can be used in the initial phases of projects, also by people who are not necessarily experts at calculating the impact of NBS solutions,” says Morten Revsbæk, CEO of SCALGO.
“We generally see a huge potential in bridging the gap between DTU’s strong expertise in the field of water management and SCALGO’s competences within the design and implementation of efficient algorithms. In addition, we use our insights into the end-user needs of architects, consulting engineers and utility companies to make sure that we get it right in relation to the needs of the market,” says Morten Revsbæk.
Huge potential for collaboration
DTU and SCALGO expect to present the new tool within the next two years. Initially, the idea is to deploy it in Denmark and the other Scandinavian countries as part of the SCALGO Live digital platform. The platform is already used by about 5,000 Scandinavian users to work with flood risk and climate change adaptation based on detailed digital elevation models.
“The new project with SCALGO is a good example of how companies can benefit directly from DTU’s research through the sharing of results and the creation of value in the real world,” says Professor Peter Steen Mikkelsen from DTU Environment, who is Head of Water DTU.
“In this case, the collaboration also helps to strengthen our research and increase its relevance to the challenges associated with climate change adaptation which society faces.”