The changes in impervious surfaces due to rapid urbanization have adverse impacts on the hydrological process in urban catchments, leading to higher flooding peaks and volumes and even damaging public properties, deteriorating water environments, and triggering health issues. In this paper, an effective and decent assessment framework was developed to evaluate the influences of urban redevelopment on peak flooding rate and flooding volume in the Sugar House drainage catchment, Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. Historical remote sensing aerial images were classified and bias-corrected by PCI Geomatica to obtain the land-cover maps, which spatially and temporarily present the changes in impervious and pervious surfaces in the catchment during the 68 years from 1950 to 2018. A rainfall-runoff model was used to simulate the flooding changes driven by sequential urban redevelopment scenarios under various artificial rainfalls. Modeling results show that the urbanized impacts on drainage flooding increase as the rainfall return period decreases. Although the changing pattern of flooding peaks is similar to that of flooding volumes, the relative percent changes (1950 as reference year) of flooding volumes are more significant than flooding peaks. This work fills in the gap of evaluating the impacts of urban growth alone on flooding within urban drainage systems, which helps develop effective urban planning and land management policy, flooding control measures, and sustainable urban drainage design.

Tracking the 68-year Impacts of Urban Redevelopment on Urban Stormwater Flooding-A Case Study

Created in 1999, the Environmental & Water Resources Institute (EWRI) is the recognized leader within ASCE for the integration of technical expertise and public policy in the planning, design, construction, and operation of environmentally sound and sustainable infrastructure impacting air, land and water resources.

[Paper Proceedings](https://doi.org/10.1061/9780784483466)

Conference DOI: https://doi.org/10.26226/m.6329c39b68fb0e00131f77d2