Feasibility
of installing Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems in already urbanized areas of
the Calderdale District,
Ana
Paula Micou
Instituto
de Geografía, Fac. de Filosofía y Letras Universidad de Buenos
Aires (Argentine)
paulamicou@yahoo.com.ar
The research
and development of new methodologies for the control of diffuse pollution for
the urban river restoration have grown considerable science the late
nineteen-nineties in the UK, particularly in Scotland, and a number of new techniques
have been developed such the sustainable urban Drainage Systems (SUDS), a range
of technologies especially designed to mimic the natural process of the river
catchment (Petts et al 2002).
However, all these techniques are
been built for new urban developments in order to prevent more sources of
pollution, but there is a lack of work that analyzes the possibility of
installing the systems in already developed areas in order to control and
reduce existent pollution. These already developed areas may be important
sources of urban pollution, but they may be not suitable for the installation
of certain control techniques, because of constrains associated with urban
areas, such as the lack of space.
Therefore, the main purpose of this
paper is to construct are methodology based on a Multi Criteria analysis (MCA)
using Geographical Information Systems (GIS) techniques to identify suitable
areas for retrofitting urban rivers, considering socio-economical and physical
variable which are determinant as concerns the possibility of building SUDS in
already developed urban areas in the Calderdale District, West Yorkshire, UK.
The MCA resulted to be a simple and
useful tool to identify suitable places and the result showed that is the
possible to install SUDS in already urban areas, and specially those techniques
which are considered as source control techniques like swales or pervious
surfaces. Site control techniques may be applied as well but some other factors
must be included in the MCA.