Drainage Systems Optimization Under Climate Change Scenarios

The increasing frequency of extreme rainstorms due to climate changes calls for cost-effective methodologies to optimize drainage networks and flood risk mitigation practices. This paper presents an effective methodology that combines two well-known methods to optimize the drainage network design. The methodology uses the Harmony Search algorithm to identify the best solution for the drainage network and the simulations obtained through the Storm Water Management Model to verify the respect of the hydraulic constraints. The methodology is applied to the literature case study of Anytown, showing a significant reduction of 34.5% of the drainage network design cost compared with the common Rational Method. Moreover, the methodology is able to identify the optimum allocation and volumes of detention ponds for runoff control in case of variations in rainfall regime. The methodology allowed to prevent floods, by decreasing the channel filling degree