Tagged: Urban Water Management
Wigan Flood Alleviation Scheme Wins ICE Award
CONGRATULATIONS to all involved in the Wigan Flood Alleviation Scheme which fought off stiff competition to win the Large Project Award at the North West Civil Engineering Awards 2013. According to the ICE’s North West branch report the £11.2 million scheme “stood out for several reasons: It was well optioneered; it was a non-mechanical sustainable [...]
Learning to SWiM:
How to improve sustainability, save money and underpin business resilience. In launching its latest State of the Nation: Water report in June 2012, The Institution of Civil Engineers concluded that “the challenges facing the UK’s water security are with us, are serious and require immediate attention”. While flood risk management remains high on the water [...]
New Hydro StormTrain Series – a SuDS-Compliant Toolbox for Surface Water Treatment
Hydro International has launched The Hydro StormTrainTM Series, a comprehensive toolbox of surface water treatment devices in anticipation of the growing need to remove silts, sediments and other pollutants from stormwater runoff. Through The Hydro StormTrainTM Series, Hydro is providing an unrivalled range of performance-verified and internationally-recognised technologies for surface water treatment to meet current [...]
Conference Focuses on Surface Water Treatment Best Practice
A ONE-DAY conference focusing on best-practice in surface water treatment is being hosted by sustainable drainage specialists Hydro International, bringing together a distinguished panel of expert speakers to highlight problems and solutions for the effective delivery of surface water quality. “Surface Water Management – Implementing Quality” will be held at The National Self Build & [...]
Surface Water Management Conference – Implementing Quality
17th April 2013, At The National Self Build & Renovation Centre, Swindon. Whether you are involved in designing, building or approving SuDS schemes, this one day conference is designed to provide practical guidance and share latest best practice for surface water treatment.
Government: Too Slow to Tackle Flooding say MPs
The Government has been too slow to implement changes that would protect homes and businesses from the shattering effects of flooding and needs to get on with implementing them, MPs have warned in the run-up to scrutiny of the draft Water Bill. The select committee for Environmental, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) sets out the [...]
UK Needs Strategies to Save and Store More Rainwater, says ICE
The Institution of Civil Engineers has called for a coherent strategy to store and save rainwater, after 2012 was declared the UK’s second wettest year on record. The ICE is calling for a UK-wide Water Security Task Force to be set up to support the development of a more coherent approach to managing drought and [...]
DEFRA Consults on Urban Diffuse Pollution Strategy
Defra is seeking views to help develop a strategy for the management of urban diffuse water pollution in England. The consultation will run until 8 February 2013 and consultation responses are being invited on the Defra website. According to Defra, currently, 27% of water bodies in England meet the standards necessary to support viable ecosystems. Many [...]
How can we deliver SuDS in the Public Realm?
At the London retrofit launch event in April part of my presentation touched on how traffic calming contributed to poor drainage design and an approach or attitude that drainage is an expensive burden and distraction. I mentioned that the previous Government set a clear ten year target to reduce road accidents by what was considered [...]
Wigan’s Hydro-Brake® Flood Defences in Action
Heavy June rain put the Environment Agency’s £12million Flood Alleviation Scheme on the River Douglas through its first major test as torrential downpours spectacularly filled its radical new flood storage area. At the centre of the dam, just a mile from the town centre, two giant Hydro-Brake® Flow Controls successfully held back flood waters in [...]
The Top 7 Unanswered Questions on SuDS Standards
With one voice, a cry for ‘clarity, clarity, clarity’ has gone out to Government in response to the National SuDS Standards consultation. There are strong indications that both local government and industry believe the standards, as they currently stand, are not yet fit for purpose. The devil is definitely in the detail as far as [...]
Regulating urban diffuse pollution
“The problem is, we aren’t able to regulate diffuse sources” is occasionally heard from speakers at conferences or in discussions with water industry colleagues. Whilst that may be true, it is not the same as stating that diffuse sources cannot be regulated. But the belief is a problem. Nearly forty years ago, The Control of [...]
Remain water wise despite replenished water resources, says EA
The Environment Agency has urged the public to continue to use water wisely, despite significantly reduced risks of serious drought. The wettest April on record and continuing rain in May has made widespread water restrictions more unlikely this summer, but the agency also warned that underground water levels are still low or exceptionally low in [...]
Surface Water Management 2012
The annual CIWEM conference will focus on direction, policy and practice. Thinking from across the world is helping to set out how surface water management fits into the broader context of water in the urban environment. The developing ideas envisage multiple benefits accruing from a wide variety of schemes and projects
New Training Programme for SABS and SuDS Approval
A consortium of three market leading and innovative organisations (Arup, Hydro International and Micro Drainage) have collaborated to produce a series of three days of training, specifically developed for SABs and organisations submitting SuDS schemes for approval. The content has been generated by practitioners with extensive experience both in the UK and overseas to help [...]
Flood Warnings – But no End to Drought
The Environment agency issued flood warnings across the South West, Midlands, North East and East of England as stong winds and heavy rain dominated the weekend weather. Thousands of homes were left without electricity and more than 25 flood warnings were in place according to the BBC’s round up of flooding problems across the worst-affected [...]
It never rains….?
As drought was followed by deluge, recent weather patterns underlined the urgency of finding sustainable means of controlling surface water flows has not diminished.Flooding exacerbated by a ground hardened through drought prevented surface water infiltrating through the soil. Climate change is leading both to longer, dryer periods and to more intense storm events, which meteorologists [...]
Let’s Get Nibbling!
The new SuDS Retrofitting guidance by CIRIA was launched this last Monday (23 April), after a very long gestation period, and I was really pleased to finally have it available, and to have been part of one of the launch events. A few things sprang to mind as a consequence of the session, with the [...]
CIRIA Launches Retrofit SuDs Guidance
CIRIA is launching its much-anticipated guidance on Retrofitting to Manage Surface Water at a series of events across the UK this week. According to CIRIA, this important guidance document “promotes a different approach to managing surface water run-off to sustain communities that are pleasant and vibrant places to live in. This guidance sets out a [...]
SuDs get out clause would be ‘unmanageable’
So, the consultation on the National SuDS Standards is closed, and we are all eagerly awaiting the outcome. The draft standards are much as expected, but I am surprised, and more than a little concerned, that they contain such an unmanageable get out clause allowing any development to be exempt from SUDS if the SUDS [...]
When will we have a truly sustainable drainage infrastructure?
As Defra’s consultation on National Standards for SuDS came to a close, I was prompted to ask the question: how long will it be before they have a measurable impact on our surface water management infrastructure in the UK? The answer is, surely not for many years. Set to become law in Autumn 2012 at [...]
Is Transferring Software Around the World the Key to Advancing WSUD?
Is transferring software around the world the key to advancing Water Sensitive Urban Design ? (WSUD) or should we understand the context of the place in which we want to develop WSUD first? It is very easy to get carried away with the bells and whistles of software but what really works is when we [...]
Drought ‘Summit’ Calls for More Water-Saving Measures
Environment Secretary Caroline Spelman today called on the water industry, businesses and the general public to save water in a bid to prevent worsening drought conditions in the UK. At a specially-called Summit held at Defra, key players in the water industry came together to discuss action being taken to tackle drought and what more [...]
Water Reflections No. 2 – Treating Surface Water Drainage
“Of course the concentrations are high – you sampled during a period of heavy rain” thus I was told off when trying to interpret data from a survey of the Ditton brook near Liverpool in the mid 1970s. No-one talked about diffuse pollution in those days; the awareness that high flow conditions often meant higher [...]
Flooding ‘could be the worst outcome of Climate Change’
The risks of flooding are projected to increase significantly in the UK – making it possibly the worst climate change threat facing the UK, according to a new Government environmental study. DEFRA today published its The Climate Change Risk Assessment (CCRA), a groundbreaking study looking at the top 100 challenges to the UK and our [...]
Super-Sewer Debate: A Step Too Far for SuDS?
The extent and passion of the debate over the proposed £4.1 billion Thames Tunnel “super sewer” has highlighted the mountain still to climb in reaching a vision for integrated urban water management in the UK which can be shared and owned by all stakeholders including planners, designers, the water companies and the general public. Thames [...]
A Guide to SuDS in the Urban Environment
The Engineering Nature’s Way Guide to SUDS in the Urban Landscape is a simple guide to designing and delivering SUDS in urban environments. The guide covers Water Sensitive Urban Design, blue/green infrastructure and SUDS retrofitting and is jointly authored by Prof Richard Ashley, Sheffield University, Sue Illman from Illman Young Landscape Architects and Alex Stephenson, chair of [...]
Back in the USA – Part 2!
How sustainable is sustainable drainage? That was the question I wanted to ask when I went ‘back to the USA’ to visit the successful sustainable drainage implementation programmes in Portland, Oregon and Seattle, Washington. My follow-up USA blog has taken longer than planned, but that’s because since my last posting, I’ve become an employee of [...]
Raising a Glass to Visionary Flood Prevention
Official celebrations to mark the success of two pioneering flood prevention schemes have highlighted their pioneering approaches to flood storage and deserve hearty congratulations. Glasgow City Council’s hugely impressive White Cart Flood Prevention project celebrated its official inauguration to much-deserved engineering plaudits on October 31 while Wigan’s visionary Flood Alleviation project was marked with celebrations [...]
NCE Flood Management Conference
New Civil Engineer is hosting its annual Flood Management Conference in December with a line-up of high profile speakers According the NCE, the expert speakers include: Dr Jean Venables, Chief Executive, Association of Drainage Authorities David Rooke, Director of Flood and Coastal Risk Management, Environment Agency Daniel Johns, Head of Funding, Insurance & Outcomes, Defra [...]
Hydro International Hosts SuDS Round Table Debate
Hydro International hosted SuDS: The State of the Nation, a Round Table debate to discuss the opportunities and challenges facing SuDS delivery.
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