This is a bold move. Writing a blog post on a topic that (no doubt) most people would rather cut off their private parts and boil them for dinner, than read about. But hold on. Sheees-ah turning this around. There’s even a drop of romance in here for you… Cheeky.

SuDS, although you may have never of heard of them, are important. Just trust me please. SuDS, or sustainable urban drainage systems, refers to the green land (or lack of!) that is able to soak up surface water. Surface water is becoming an increasing problem. We have concreted over so much natural land that would normally soak up rainfall and excess water (through natural permeable surfaces, a process called infiltration) and now we’ve now got an influx of the volume of surface water.

To put it plainly, we’ve fucked it. But don’t fear, this isn’t necessarily a gloomy topic and I will prove this to you later on. Strap in.

Natural infiltration is limited in our urban areas, where many (once natural) surfaces are now smothered by buildings and paving. Instead, drainage networks divert surface water to local watercourses (rivers, estuaries etc). This can cause adverse effects such as downstream flooding and a decline in river water quality that is caused when sewers are overwhelmed by surface water, resulting in an over spill of raw sewage water into rivers.

Sustainable drainage systems aim to alleviate these problems by storing or re-using surface water at source, by decreasing flow rates to watercourses and by improving water quality – pretty cool stuff huh?

Now to slip in a cheeky bit of romance into the mix. This steamy stuff will get your attention… (Oop, naaaughty).

I’m referring back to when I was talking about sewers being overwhelmed and spilling untreated sewage into our rivers, messing up the water quality. A good example of where this issue is currently being solved is good old London. The Tideway Tunnel (also known as the super sewer) is a new 25 km tunnel being built underneath the Thames which will collect the excess water and prevent the tens of millions of tonnes of pollution that currently pollute London’s river every year. I am proud to say that I am currently dating a young man who works for this company (on the sustainability team) and although I would never admit it to his face (duh?), I think what he does is pretty darn cool. In fact I think he’s the best thing since sliced bread. Period. Yes, you read that right. I’m dating someone. SuD me sideways…

Steering away from my emotions and back to SuDS.

So how do these bad boy drainage systems work then? Allow me to enlighten you. SuDS use a sequence of measures that work together and form a management train. They control flow velocity (attenuate) and remove pollutants as the surface water flows through the system. They also provide natural contours to store water and can be used to allow water to soak (infiltrate) into the ground or evaporated from surface water and lost or transpired from vegetation (evapo-transpiration).

In conclusion; SuDS are often regarded as a sequence of management practices, control structures and strategies. They are designed to efficiently and sustainably drain surface water, while minimising pollution and managing the impact on water quality of local water bodies. This is becoming increasingly important in areas where infrastructure is shooting up all over the place. We need more green infrastructure such as SuDS to be implemented into policy in order for built up areas to cope with surface water and to protect our TraC (transitional and coastal) waters and tributaries.

Some example of SuDS:

Close your mouth, dear.

References:

https://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/engineeringGeology/urbanGeoscience/suds/what.html