Water and Effluent Treatment Magazine
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20 march 2015 INSIGHT cPm Group Precast concrete drainage www.cpm-group.com cPm 's Off-site Solution team offers flood protection products and rainwater and stormwater management systems that include modular tanks, rainwater harvesting systems, widewall chambers and flatpack tanks that are suitable for the water industry. Flood control International Flood protection www.floodcontrolinternational. com The company is a leading specialist in flood protection, designing, supplying and installing a range of barriers, gates, doors and glazing for commercial, utility and retail applications. Installations are for flood depths up to 4.5m. It also has a range of contamination containment barriers to prevent water course pollution. mccloy consulting SUDS www.mccloyconsulting.com It is an independent, environmen- tal consultancy specialising in SUDS, pollution control for environmentally sensitive projects, and Flood risk assessment (Fra). It is at the forefront of implemen- tation of the design and implementation of SUDS and can count a number of major clients including attenuation and Specifiers file: permeable pavement manufac- turers and suppliers. Inero UK Flood protection www.inero.co.uk The company is an agent for Swedish manufacturer Inero's range of rapid deployment flood protection barriers. The barriers are an alternative to heavy, complicated, time-consuming flood protection systems. UK Flood Barriers Flood mitigation technology www.ukfloodbarriers.co.uk The company specialises in passive flood technologies that require no manual intervention and no power source. These innovative, long-term and cost-effective solutions are in action in the UK and throughout the world, effectively protecting vital assets and communities from the growing risk of flooding. Wickham Laboratories Contamination monitoring www.wickhamlabs.co.uk Wickham Laboratories offers a service to monitor contamination resulting from flood and sewage pollution. It uses robust microbiological test procedures to determine the extent of microbiological contamination health hazards. The kit: Glass flood defence system IBS Engineered Products www.ibsengineeredprod- ucts.co.uk IBS Engineered Products' new lightweight version of its glass flood defence system is now available in the UK and Ireland. The new sleeker product incorporates a slimmer frame design that maximises the view through the glass panels and provides flood protection up to 800mm in height Flood modelling and prediction ambiental Technical Solutions www.ambiental.co.uk ambiental Technical Solutions has released its fourth generation UK flood dataset. covering all of the UK, with a full range of return and where the load criteria consideration is hydrostatic water head. The IBS glass wall flood protection system is a solution for where traditional floodwalls are undesir- able and temporary barriers cannot be installed due to certain logistical circumstances. Providing not only a spectacular alternative, the glass flood wall systems' benefits also include interchangeability, easily replace- able parts and maintenance free. periods, and incorporating the most up-to-date river flow and rainfall data, UKFloodmap4 provides the most detailed flood maps currently available for the UK, greatly improving the way insurers assess flood risk at a building level. responding to a need expressed by insurers, it also includes enhanced approaches for resolving off-flood- plain risks. Built using Flowroute-i, ambiental's flood modelling software, UKFloodmap4™ provides accurate, detailed and easy-to-understand flood information for all major sources of flooding: river, tidal, and surface water (pluvial). Search for suppliers at www.wwtonline.co.uk The challenge: Flood risk management Predictable and repeatable maintenance should ensure SuDS continue to perform when needed. A solution: Good surface water management A s their name suggests, SuDS are a more sustain- able approach to surface water management that avoid costly and unsustainable trans- portation of surface water run- off into the local environment or through an overloaded sewer system. The principles of SuDS are first and foremost to mimic natural drainage paths and pro- cesses and deal with rainwater as close as possible to where it falls. SuDS intercept and hold back excess surface water run- off, then manage it through tem- porary storage, infiltration, evapotranspiration or reuse. Good SuDS schemes satisfy both quantity and quality objectives and are likely to provide multi- ple benefits to the community by promoting local amenity and biodiversity. A good surface water man- agement train can either use 'natural' or manufactured com- ponents taking into account the space available for storage, the ground conditions, the level of pollutants present, the level of infiltration that is possible and so on. O€en a combination of above-ground landscaped fea- tures and manufactured devices come together to achieve the best results. Storage volumes Temporary flood storage may be achieved with above-ground features such as retention ponds or by using underground geo- synthetic modular systems. Designers may need to consider the most efficient way to mini- mise storage volumes to save land use e.g. by use of optimis- ing vortex flow controls. Recent developments of the Hydro-Brake Optimum, for example, have achieved 15% additional stormwater storage savings compared to conven- tional vortex flow controls. At the same time, a good SuDS management train should also remove pollutants by filter- ing or separating out silt / sedi- ment, litter and hydrocarbons from surface water prior to dis- charge into the watercourse. Removal can be achieved through natural features such as filter strips or swales, as well as by manufactured devices such as hydrodynamic vortex separators. Latest technologies include street-level bioretention and fil- tration systems, for example the Hydro BioCell. From the surface, all that is seen is a tree or shrub protruding through a decorative grating in a typical concrete slab at pavement level. Underneath, a concrete con- tainer with a mulch layer and unique soil filter medium provide for effective and consist- ent stormwater treatment, before discharging to a surface water drain or infiltration system. Different skillset Contractors need to ensure both quality and quantity of dis- charge protects the environment through the construction phase. If it is not built correctly an oth- erwise good SuDS design will be ineffective from the start. Con- struction of SuDS infrastructure can require a different skillset for contractors from conven- tional drainage approaches. The new planning rules for England place a much greater responsibility on developers to show how SuDS schemes will be maintained effectively throughout their life. Where possible, predictable and repeatable maintenance should ensure that SuDS continue to perform as required, using skilled maintenance contractors and following manufacturers' schedules for inspection and maintenance of proprietary systems. Long-term responsibility for maintaining SuDS needs to be resolved at the start of the development process. While the developer has responsibil- ity for the SuDS, most will need to negotiate with a third- party, such as a water com- pany or management com- pany, to deliver a long-term maintenance plan. n Alex Stephenson is group market development director at Hydro Internationa,l and chair of British Water's Sustainable Water Management Group SuDS intercept and hold back excess surface water run-off, then manage it through temporary storage, infiltration, evapotranspiration or reuse construction of SuDS infrastruc- ture can require a different skillset for contractors from conventional drainage approaches.