Predicting flood events in Kathmandu Metropolitan City under climate change and urbanisation

Saurav Kc; Sangam Shrestha; Sarawut Ninsawat; Somchai Chonwattana

doi:10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111894

Predicting flood events in Kathmandu Metropolitan City under climate change and urbanisation

J Environ Manage. 2021 Mar 1:281:111894. doi: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111894. Epub 2021 Jan 4.

Authors

Saurav Kc¹, Sangam Shrestha², Sarawut Ninsawat¹, Somchai Chonwattana³

Affiliations

¹ School of Engineering and Technology, Asian Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 4, Klong Luang, Pathum Thani, 12120, Thailand.
² School of Engineering and Technology, Asian Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 4, Klong Luang, Pathum Thani, 12120, Thailand; Stockholm Environment Institute, Asia Center, Chulalongkorn Soi 64, Phayathai Road, Pathumwan, Bangkok, 1033, Thailand. Electronic address: sangam@ait.ac.th.
³ Danish Hydraulic Institute (DHI) - Thailand, Asian Institute of Technology, P.O. Box 4, Klong Luang, Pathum Thani, 12120, Thailand.

PMID: 33412359
DOI: 10.1016/j.jenvman.2020.111894

Abstract

Urbanisation and climate change collectively impose the threat of urban flood. The impervious transformation and changes in local climatic conditions increase the risk of frequent pluvial flooding in Kathmandu. Therefore, this study aims to assess the integrated impact of urbanisation and climate change on pluvial flooding in Kathmandu Metropolitan City, using the Personal Computer Storm Water Management Model. The future daily rainfall from three Regional Climate Models under two Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs) and the observed daily data has been disaggregated to hourly series using temporal rainfall disaggregation. The result shows that the combined impact on pluvial flood is likely to intensify with relatively more contribution from climate change. The CNRM-CM5-CSIRO-CCAM under the RCP 4.5 scenario projects the maximum increase (60-90%) in flood volume for current (75%) and extreme (90%) imperviousness, under a 2-year and 20-year return period (RP) with the extent of the flood area increasing more than the depth. For a 2-year RP, areas with a depth of 0.10-0.25 m are likely to expand while those from 0.25 to 0.40 m in depth are projected to have more velocity, and these trends are expected to be magnified for higher RPs. The study shows that even though urbanisation contributes less to urban pluvial flood, it can be a catalyst for exaggerating other factors and implementing management measures. For instance, the application of small-scale rainwater harvesting, and overflow storage reduced the runoff, thereby reducing the flood volume by 20-35%. Furthermore, the findings highlight the need for planning management strategies such as evaluation and upgrading of conventional drainage systems with low impact measures (rainwater harvesting and green roofs); technical and financial assistance to urban dwellers in adopting the management measures or a combination of them based on the location, requirements, and availability of information and resources to reduce the effects of pluvial flood in Kathmandu.

Keywords: Environment management; Imperviousness; Pluvial flood; Rainfall disaggregation; Stormwater modelling.

MeSH terms

Cities
Climate Change*
Computer Simulation
Floods*
Urbanization