A Review of Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems in Adaptation to Climate Change Impacts

The two factors of the trend of climate change and urban development pose a challenge to urban drainage infrastructures due to the adverse impacts on precipitation extremes and urban environment. Nowadays, Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDS) have become quite popular as a result of their positive effects on the water quality, quantity, amenity, and recreational affairs in urban landscapes. Today, the majority of the world agrees that a sustainable drainage approach has an influence in reducing global climate change and adapting to this phenomenon (which has already started). The current paper reviews recent progress in the development of sustainable drainage, based on interdisciplinary studies. First, the reasons behind moving towards a sustainable urban drainage system are mentioned and then, existing models and decision-aid tools to assess different types of SUDS are compared and discussed. This paper also explains some limitations and challenges related to applying SUDS in practice and finally, the results and conclusions are presented.