ENVE Urban Systems Practice Exam

When urban systems struggle with rainfall, the resulting runoff carries more pollutants into rivers, lakes, and oceans and can overwhelm drainage networks, leading to more frequent and severe floods. This combination shows that the way we manage stormwater in cities isn’t effectively handling the volume and velocity of runoff, especially on highly paved, densely built areas. The issue highlighted is the need to improve stormwater management—using approaches like green infrastructure, retention or detention facilities, permeable surfaces, and better separation of stormwater from wastewater—to reduce pollutant loads and control flood peaks.

Other options don’t fit as well: dams address flow regulation but not the everyday, urban runoff and water-quality problems; expanding wastewater treatment helps water quality but doesn’t directly fix the flood-management and runoff-collection issues that worsen urban flooding; and less precipitation contradicts the observed increase in flooding.