Integrating urban development and stormwater management; Car parking allocation in north of Finland

Intensified urbanization and climate change alter natural water systems, resulting in urban flooding. To overcome this issue, urban development decisions should align with resiliency needs including stormwater management. Integrating stormwater management within urban planning helps us to design more sustainable alternative systems. Developing vacant or underused areas which leads to changes of imperviousness percentage, hence influences runoff volume, is a key action in urban development. We investigated the effect of car parking allocation on stormwater management in urban areas. In this analysis, several car parking allocation scenarios are considered for this analysis in three independent urban areas in Oulu, northern Finland. These areas are encountering some changes in land use and new construction based on their approved detailed plan. We used a calibrated Stormwater Management Model (SWMM) to simulate different redevelopment scenarios. In this study, impact of climate change is addressed by comparing a range of precipitation values. Based on the results a promising structure is provided that decreases flooded areas in the future. Results indicate, that we can conduct stormwater flood management more efficiently by changing regulations in urban planning in the context of car parking, which helps us construct more green infrastructure instead of grey ones; in addition, changes in people's mobility habits and behavior which is affected on urban structure indirectly contributes to stormwater control.