Quantification of flood mitigation services by urban green spaces using InVEST model: a case study of Hyderabad city, India

Urban floods have become more frequent across the globe. The transformation of the urban landscape with increased concretization and dwindling green cover has resulted in excess run-off generation thereby causing the flash floods. The protective role and ecosystem benefits of urban green spaces needs to be quantified so that it will unlock the possibilities of integrating natural capital thinking into policymaking. Hence in this study, we quantified the flood mitigation service of green spaces and estimated the tangible economic damage to the built infrastructure in the Hyderabad metropolitan city, India using the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Trade-offs model. The analysis was carried out for 2-years and 5-years design precipitation of 1 h duration. Results show that 44-50% of the precipitation is retained by the urban green and open spaces. With an increase of 13% in the rainfall intensity (from 2-years to 5-years), the run-off volume has increased by 21%, while the run-off retained has increased only by 5%, which indicates that even slight increase in rainfall intensity results in huge run-off generation that causes commensurate economic damages. The economic damage due to flood inundation of the built infrastructure is estimated to be 1.39 million USD using the unit cost method. Overall, the indicator of run-off retention service is quantified as 4.25E + 13 and 4.46E + 13 for the 2-years and 5-years return period precipitation, respectively. The structural and non-structural flood mitigation measures are also enumerated along with the limitations of the model.

Automated summary

Urban floods are increasingly common due to changes in urban landscapes. This study quantified the flood mitigation service of green spaces in Hyderabad, India, and estimated the economic damage to infrastructure. Results showed that urban green spaces retain a significant amount of precipitation, but increased rainfall intensity leads to more runoff and economic damages. Flood mitigation measures should be implemented to address the issue.