The Use of Lamination Basins for Mitigation of the Urban Flooding Risk: The Case Study of Peschici

Abstract

In the last decades human activities enhanced significant morphological riverbeds, banks and floodplain changes causing negative impacts on ecosystems and populations. In this scenario, harmonizing hydrogeological defence interventions in areas with high environmental value may appear a difficult challenge to win, even more if the same areas are densely populated. This is the case of the Ulse river basin in the Peschici Municipality, located in an area with a very high landscape-environmental value, heavily anthropized, even in the riverbanks near the basin outlet. There, the river rod is arranged with a concrete conglomerate coating according the design criteria of the 70’s. It is evident that the hydraulic risk mitigation taking into account the land use and critical metereological events, congruent with the current Flood Directive, would have a very significant impact on the environment. In this work, in order to combine risk mitigation with a positive effect on urban ecosystems, flood lamination basins have been designed mainly using bioengineering techniques. The proposed nature-based approach at basin scale is in line with the European Parliament Directive 2007/60/EC of 23rd October 2007 on the assessment and management of flood risks. The design was performed through hydraulic modelling carried out using 1D-2D software. Therefore, this study presents a green and nature-based approach to reduce losses related to potential flood events in urban areas, where the traditional engineering techniques, usually, have some constraints related to economic costs, planning restrictions and environmental impacts.