Author(s)

S. Beecham & R. Fallahzadeh

Abstract

The expansion of our towns and our limited land resources have led to the need for multifunctional land use in densely populated cities like Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia and Adelaide, Australia. Recently in Kuala Lumpur, Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SuDS) have been being adopted as a component of integrated urban water management. However, even SuDS technologies still often require dedicating areas of land to a single land use such as water conservation, flood control or water quality treatment. This paper investigates how innovative approaches to urban water management can lead to multi-functional landuse where habitat connections, flood storage, water reuse and social amenity are all integrated in the same land corridors. This could potentially release flood fringe areas for development which in turn could provide the economic driver to achieve higher level outcomes such as enhancement of urban ecology. However, further research is needed to inform practice in this important area. Keywords: sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS), multi-functional landuse, urban ecology, urban water management. 1 Introduction In recent years most stormwater management regulations have been concerned primarily with reducing peak flows and volumes of runoff into the stormwater system. While this is still very important, little emphasis has been given to the quality of the water that is reaching the waterways. These waterways support sensitive ecosystems that can be easily impacted by increased stormwater pollution. It is important to ensure that future developments are implemented using an integrated urban water management approach. This can be achieved

Keywords

sustainable urban drainage systems (SuDS), multi-functional landuse, urban ecology, urban water management.