Water sensitive urban design: a UK take on a concept from down under

Last year was said to be a ‘weird’ year of weather extremes, with water shortages in part of the UK in the spring and flooding in the rest of the year resulting in 2012 being one of the wettest years on record. This combined with growing concerns about the quality of our lakes, rivers and streams highlights the importance of improving the way we manage the water cycle, particularly in urban areas.

Water Sensitive Urban Design (WSUD) provides an approach to integrate water cycle management with the built environment through planning and urban design. CIRIA recently produced an “ideas booklet”, launched at Ecobuild 2013, on the role of WSUD in the UK and a more detailed scoping study looking at the potential for the UK to be more water sensitive by adopting water sensitive urban design principles. The documents discuss drivers, the vision and some of the approaches to delivering WSUD in the UK.

The CIRIA-managed susdrain website is an exciting new community that provides a range of resources for those involved in delivering sustainable drainage systems (SuDS)

On 19 June, the CIRIA Network together with susdrain, will be hosting a free seminar in Newcastle to provide an overview of the CIRIA WSUD scoping study, outline the potential value of WSUD to UK stakeholders and provide both international and UK examples of good water management consistent with WSUD. Further details on the event can be found at www.ciria.org/networkevents