Indicator-based resilience assessment of stormwater infrastructure network structure

ABSTRACT

Stormwater management systems rely on an acyclic network structure, making the network more vulnerable to failure. Existing stormwater resilience studies have predominantly focused on hydraulic and hydrological characteristics of the system with no robust frameworks to evaluate the resilience of the stormwater piped network in terms of network connectivity. This paper introduces a new index-based quantitative framework to characterise the resilience of acyclic stormwater network structure using graph theory and resilience theories. This includes an index developed to evaluate the overall independency of a pipe within an acyclic piped network. The framework was applied to various simple network structures, and an existing stormwater network demonstrating the influence of network structure, pipeline connectivity and number of outlets on the network resilience. This framework can be used to test different network layouts and structures in urban design and pipeline renewal projects to maximise the resilience of the structure of stormwater networks.

KEYWORDS:

• Stormwater Management system
• resilience
• stormwater network structure
• network structure resilience
• drainage connectivity
• Low impact Development (LID)

Acknowledgements

We acknowledge Auckand Council for providing the details of the case study catchment stormwater network. This research was funded by the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges National Science Challenge.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are openly available in Auckland Council GeoMaps mapping service at https://www.aucklandcouncil.govt.nz/geospatial/geomaps/Pages/default.aspx.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Resilience to Nature’s Challenges National Science Challenge.