Integrated Modelling for Urban Flood Management

This thesis presents an effective integrated modelling framework, capable of simulating the multiple benefits of water sensitive urban design (WSUD) especially for flood risk management. The developed framework provides a flexible structure for coupling models that have different spatial and temporal scales, and level of complexities. I put a special focus on building an integrated model for urban pluvial flood risk management. Reduced complexity flood models were developed and coupled to existing models to enable robust and fast assessment of flood damage costs in urban areas. The integrated framework uses semi-continuous simulation to estimate the cumulative flood mitigation benefits of WSUD over the long-term (e.g. 85-years). Using this framework, I assessed the impact of rainwater harvesting tanks on urban flood risk mitigation in a case study in Melbourne.