MAIN FEATURE
How SuDS can help meet new Water Management requirements
By Stuart Crisp, Advanced Drainage Systems and Jo Bradley, Stormwater Shepherds
In April 2023, the Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (Defra) published its Plan forWater. The aimof the plan is to create amore holistic approach to water management, ensuring that there is enough water to supply the UK’s growing population, and that the water in rivers, lakes and other water bodies is free frompollution. It promises action on all sources of pollution: wastewater treatment, agriculture, plastics, urban stormwater and road run-off, and chemicals.
Public awareness and concern about water quality, and how it impacts on the natural environment and on public health, is growing fast. And stormwater is increasingly being recognised as a big issue. As rainfall events becomemore intense, and our ageing sewer system becomes evermore overloaded, combined sewer overflows - where wastewater is discharged into rivers and other water bodies - are being activated more frequently.
New legislation will be welcome then – which is what the Government is
4
suggesting in its Plan forWater. Among the proposed legislation are changes to planning policy so that new developments are designed to reduce the likelihood of both flooding and water shortages.Water companies, which will have to produce Drainage andWastewaterManagement Plans, could be involved in planning decisions.
The Plan also references the Government’s plans to finally implement Schedule 3 of the Flood and WaterManagement Act 2010, which covers SuDS approval and adoption, in England – subject to consultation. Initially announced in January 2023, this couldmake the inclusion of SuDS standard practice in the design, construction and adoption of nearly all new developments from2024. It also talks about the strategic road network and how it needs to domore to prevent pollution fromhighway run-off discharging into our water courses (see box).
Multi-faceted SuDS Well-designed SuDS can help reduce
| June 2023 |
www.draintraderltd.com
pollution in a variety of ways. SuDS should bemulti-faceted, dealing with water at source to prevent activation of combined sewer overflows (CSOs) and flooding and removing pollutants to improve water quality – as well as boosting biodiversity and providing public amenity.
Good SuDS design is based on the SuDS treatment train, or SuDSmanagement train, which sees water passing through a logical sequence of stages using different SuDS components. The treatment train should consider both water quantity and quality, with the weighting given to each dependent on predicted water volumes, flows and the levels and types of pollution.
A SuDS train should start with prevention such as reducing impermeable surfaces, to reduce run-off and removing sources of pollution. Next comes source control, where rainfall is dealt with close to where it falls by infiltration-based elements such as soakaways, rain gardens and permeable pavements. Site control sees water managed within a local area, for
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80
