Optimization methods applied to stormwater management problems: a review

Stormwater management essentially aims at controlling the surface runoff to reduce water pollution and restore ecosystem integrity. This paper reviews and discusses several optimization problems associated with this field. Different features of such problems were identified to provide a classified investigation of the literature in terms of control approach, performance criteria, stormwater management approach, and uncertainty consideration. Having evaluated the relevant literature based on these factors, the knowledge gaps were extracted. We have noticed that there is an upward trend towards sustainable management of stormwater systems to deal with climate change. Despite this progress, there are still many areas to further develop stormwater management models, many of which relate to uncertainty identification, system-level real-time control, and the proper formulation of multi-objective optimization models. Hence, integration of different criteria in optimization models, and also the study of design vs. operation of stormwater management systems are proposed as further studies.