Ceramic Sustainable Urban Drainage System

Description

The main objective of LIFE CERSUDS is to improve the resilience of cities to climate change and promote the use of green infrastructure in their urban planning as a means of managing surface water flooding. It aims to achieve this through the development and implementation of a demonstration low-carbon Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS). The system will consist of an innovative permeable surface with a very low environmental impact, based on the use of tiles with low commercial value.

Specific objectives are as follows:

To reduce flooding caused by torrential rain by increasing the number of permeable surfaces in cities;
To reuse water stored during the rainy season for use during periods of drought;
To reduce runoff volumes and peak flows to treatment plants and receiving water bodies;
To integrate treatment of rainwater into the urban landscape;
To protect water quality by reducing the effects of diffuse pollution and to avoid problems in sewage treatment plants;
To reduce CO2 emissions linked with the manufacture of pavements for SUDS, given that the project will use ceramic materials with low commercial value, giving ceramic tile manufacturers a new revenue stream;
To provide a SUDS with an aesthetic-quality finish and to prevent ponding, increasing the comfort and safety of streets in rainy weather;
To develop a ceramic SUDS with greater environmental efficiency;
To demonstrate that this ceramic SUDS is suitable for rehabilitating urban areas with light traffic and to enable better management of rainwater in areas with particular geo-economic conditions;
To guarantee transferability beyond the end of the project through training activities and a business plan aimed at engineers, architects and companies, and by increasing local authorities’ awareness; and
To generate precise technical documentation to facilitate replication in other cities based on the principles of the LIFE CERSUDS demonstrator.