An integrated design combining the layout, volume, and active control of detention ponds for urban drainage systems

•Detention pond and control strategy parameters were simultaneously optimized.•Integrated design enhances optimal control performance.•Integrated design loses its advantage when operating under passive control.•Matched designs and control strategies can reduce costs. Detention ponds and their control strategies can effectively reduce flooding of urban drainage systems (UDSs). However, previous studies have ignored the connection among detention pond location, volume, and control strategies. As a result, the traditional method designs volume and location of detention ponds without considering their active control. To address this issue, the study proposed an integrated design method to enhance the effectiveness of detention ponds. Firstly, three control strategies are considered, including an orifice-based passive and two rule-based active strategies. Then, the location and volume of detention ponds, and parameters of active control strategies are simultaneously optimized to minimize cost and overflow volume. Finally, the performance of detention pond schemes is evaluated under both optimal and passive control strategies. The proposed method is applied to a drainage area in Guangzhou City, China. The results show that: (1) Compared to the passive-based design, the integrated design can reduce average cost and detention volume by 8.6% and 7.5%, respectively. (2) Even when both designs operate under the optimal control, the integrated design achieves 5.1% lower costs than passive-based design. (3) When control fails and both designs operate under passive control, the overflow of the integrated design increases by 4.8% compared to the passive-based design. The proposed method provides a cost-effective design for detention ponds by considering their dynamic capacity.