ers Feature otection Systems • Demountable systems,
are part or fully pre-installed, but requiring some operation (automatic or manual) when flood is forecast
• Building skirt systems
are used to completely surround individual buildings
• Building aperture barriers
seal gaps within buildings such as doorways and air bricks when flood is forecast. Closure of building aperture barriers can manual or automatic.
Compared to permanent defences, there is an additional operational risk of non-closure before flood water reaches the lowest level of natural or permanent defence. For those requiring manual installation, there is a need to receive flood alert in time to enable erection and/or closure. This in turn requires a reliable forecast or detection system, some alerting mechanism, someone to receive and act on the alert with sufficient lead time before flood water arrives. For automatic systems such as flap valves or mechanical/electrical products, there is no reliance on alert, except to check that automatic action can occur / has occurred. The particular closure action still needs to occur and can be prevented by some form of blockage, malfunction or loss of power (electrical products).
In the case of PLP, the process of sealing a building against water entry effectively turns it into a retaining wall. Current UK guidance suggests the need for structural designs or checks where property level flood resistance is proposed to resist a depth of more than 600mm to prevent structural damage. Where there are full length flood resistance products such as flood doors, it is important that water is allowed to weir over at 600mm or some other designed depth.
Addressing operational reliability and PLP structural safety issues paves the way for non- permanent flood protection systems to revolutionise extreme flood risk management. They come in a wide range of forms. Flexible ones enable non-standard applications, while strong/rigid ones exist for high impact uses. Automatic ones are particularly useful for fast catchments where lead times from forecast, if any, are very short, while fully installed ones that only require manual closure can help reduce deployment time, resources, equipment and access requirements. Various product types have their strengths and publications such as the temporary and demountable flood defence guide can support the selection of appropriate systems. Products with Kitemarks such as from BSI also give some confidence that they have passed conformance testing, and their ongoing quality is being monitored.
Fola Ogunyoye
www.fadsdirectory.com 15
www.managingwater.co.uk
Flood Protection Barriers
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