Enhancing the Visibility of SuDS in Strategic Planning Using Preliminary Regional Opportunity Screening

Abstract

Surface water flooding poses significant threats to communities and environments. This threat has historically been managed through sewers and combined sewer overflows; however, it is now well recognised that, alone, these legacy systems are insufficient to manage the growing pressures from climate change, population growth and urbanisation. This realisation has led to research and practice developing a broad range of new technologies to enhance the coping capacities of existing sewer systems through capturing and attenuating or reusing surface water across catchments using sustainable drainage systems (SuDS). However, despite technical understanding, industry champions and significant best practice, SuDS remain underutilised, particularly at a synergistic catchment scale where they can be most effective. In this paper we respond to this challenge by developing preliminary screening tools to enhance the visibility of SuDS among the multidisciplinary decision-makers responsible for directing strategic surface water management. We achieve this through upscaling a regional decision support model and demonstrating implementation across a case study in South West England. We find that it is possible to use easily accessible and open-source data to provide initial indications of SuDS opportunities and that this early visibility in the decision-making process can be used to support the consideration of novel and effective surface water management strategies.