Flood Management in Urban Drainage - Contributions for the Control of Water Drainage Systems using Underground Barriers

Abstract

The current document presents the Masters Thesis proposal in Informatics Engineering, taking place at University of Coimbra, and work accomplished of the candidate Joaquim Leitão during the 2015/2016 school year. In this work an alternative and innovative usage for urban drainage systems was explored, in which barriers were installed in upstream underground conduits. This approach intends to use such components to retain water in upstream sections of a given drainage system, reducing water inflows that reach its downstream sections and, consequently, their overload degree. As a result of this work, a rule-based control system was developed responsible for continuously monitoring the state of a given drainage system and performing the necessary control actions on a set of installed barriers. This control system was applied in drainage systems with a given set of properties, being subjected to typical rainfall events with distinct profiles. This study, supported by more than a thousand experiments, enabled considerable flow reductions in downstream sections. With the developed control system it is possible to prevent flood events within certain limits. When this task becomes impossible water withdrawals to external retention basins can be promoted, avoiding the need to perform any intervention.