Sustainable urban drainage: delineation of a scientific domain of knowledge production

Abstract

Sustainable Urban Drainage emerged and gained prominence during the late 90s. Despite this progress, there is little uniformity in subjects and definition of terms within the overall sustainability theme. This tends to create a duplication of objectives and confusion about the correct use of techniques and procedures. This paper seeks to identify, map and evaluate ‘Sustainable Urban Drainage’ as a scientific domain, using relationships between underlying subthemes. We analyzed 3,805 publications by 8,237 authors with relation to 11,957 citations using sociometric and bibliometric techniques. The results confirm the existence of the knowledge domain with one main nucleus and 20 independent networks. Core subthemes such as stormwater management, low impact development, integrated urban water management, bioretention, and best management practices are distinguishable the main domain.