Integrated Urban Drainage Management

Traditional urban drainage planning and operation is aimed at ensuring public health and flood protection by completely collecting and quickly removing wastewater from the settlement area, during both dry and wet weather periods. As an “end of pipe strategy”, the wastewater treatment plant (WWTP) was dedicated to improving the receiving water quality, mainly during dry weather periods, by treating wastewater prior to its discharge. Optimisation was carried out separately for both wastewater collection and treatment. In particular, the sewer system was improved by increasing its collection efficiency and minimising the volume of combined sewer overflows (CSO). In many cases, this strategy provides insufficient and cost-ineffective protection of water resources, particularly of receiving waters.