Applicability of sustainable urban drainage systems: an evaluation by multi-criteria analysis

Urban flooding has become more serious and worldwide in recent years, especially in the big cities of developing countries. This study uses a multi-criteria analysis (MCA) approach to evaluate the applicability of sustainable urban drainage systems (SUDS), a flood control measure, in the central part of Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam. The output of the personal computer storm water management model along with interviews with 140 households was used to assess the efficacy and acceptability of four SUDS alternatives: rainwater harvesting, green roof, urban green space and pervious pavement. On technical performance, green roof was the best alternative, followed by pervious pavement, urban green space and rainwater harvesting. Results of the social survey, however, diverged largely from the results of the technical assessments. In particular, people generally prefer public SUDS such as urban green space and pervious pavements to household solutions. With respect to the MCA, we applied four different procedures: Borda count, pair-wise voting, range of value and analytic hierarchy process. Despite some differences, the integrated results from MCA largely agree that urban green space is the most favourable type of SUDS, followed by green roof, pervious pavement and rainwater harvesting.