Water & Wastewater Treatment

EVENTS Upstream Thinking – on the agenda for IWEX Seminars on catchment management and sustainable drainage (SuDS) are revealed in an early peek at the packed programme for IWEX Water Live, which takes place at Birmingham NEC on 1-3 April 2014 S outh West Water's (SWW) head of sustainability, Dylan Bright, will be sharing knowledge gleaned from the utility's innovative Upstream Thinking programme in the IWEX Water Live Theatre on 2 April 2014. A winner of the Water Industry Achievement Awards partnership category in 2012, Upstream Thinking is the utility's on-going programme of environmental improvements aimed at improving water quality in river catchments. While the approach is now being taken across the UK in order to reduce water treatment costs and improve land and water management, Upstream Thinking was one of the first. Going deeper, the significance of catchment management in improving groundwater is the concern of Severn Trent Water's senior catchment management planner, Jodie Whitehead, and hydrogeologist, Stephen Buss, from independent environment consultancy ESI. They also share the platform on day two. Sustainable drainage Dŵr Cymru Welsh Water's (DCWW) head of asset strategy, Tim Williams, will reveal the challenges of the utility's urban RainScape scheme in the IWEX Water Live theatre on day three. RainScape is aimed at creating 'greener, cleaner' communities, reducing the amount of rainwater which flows into local public drainage systems and therefore reducing the risk of flooding and sewer spillages into rivers and estuaries. Techniques include installing attractive planted areas to absorb excess water, along with innovative drainage curbs. Whilst there are excellent international examples of this type of scheme including Malmo in Sweden and Portland, USA, DCWW says its RainScape schemes are the first of their kind in the UK. Joining Williams on the platform will be Mathew Simpson, director of specialist wetlands consultancy, WWT Consulting. An advocate of 'green infrastructure', Simpson recently spoke at the World Bank headquarters in Washington on the future challenges of managing natural infrastructure in a way that maximises the benefits for the city, people and biodiversity. Before and after: an improved stream in SWW's Tamar catchment creates a biodiversity corridor, helping to improve water quality by 'natural' treatment The full programme for IWEX Water Live will be revealed in the IWEX 2014 Preview, which comes out with the March issue of WWT or visit www.iwex. co.uk IWEX Water Live – topics on the agenda • • • • • • • • • • • Energyefficiency Waterefficiencyforbusiness Anaerobicdigestionandthewaterindustry Assetmanagement Wastewatertreatment Industrialeffluenttreatment Catchmentmanagement Leakagereduction Resourcerecovery Innovation Sustainableurbandrainage Welsh Water is capturing rainwater to create 'greener cleaner' communities wwtonline.co.uk January 2014 Water & Wastewater Treatment 31

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