Understanding the operational cost of sustainable drainage systems

There is wide industry agreement that Water Sensitive Design (WSD) / Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) are essential parts of the urban drainage system to manage water quality and quantity. However, despite these approaches being common practice for more than 10yrs, there is limited knowledge around the long-term operational costs of these features.

Michael Arthur presented this paper at the Water New Zealand Conference and Expo in November 2020. While most research to date has focussed on strategic level costs, this paper explores a tool developed by Metis that can analyse site specific maintenance costs.

The paper is available from our case study library:

Understanding the operational cost of sustainable drainage systems