Delivering innovative surface water flood resilience in Slough and Buckinghamshire.
Our project places the community at its heart to deliver surface water flood resilience. We will use a 'sponge' catchment method to support communities and reduce the impacts of flooding. We will do this by concentrating flood measures in two catchment areas and monitoring their progress.
What is a sponge catchment?
The sponge catchment term comes from the sponge city idea. These are urban areas with flood management actions to capture, control and reuse excess surface water. This can be through man made drainage systems, or controlled flooding and storage using open land. The two areas targeted in Slough are the Salt Hill Stream and Chalvey Ditches, which are our 'catchment' study areas.
A key part of the project is community empowerment. It will give local residents the information they need to choose flood measures which work for them. This will result in improved, sustainable public spaces with greater flood resilience.
This project provides three streams of innovation to increase resilience:
- creating sponge catchments to store rainwater and reduce flood risk
- empowering the local community to play a key role in finding flood solutions
- creating a smart water monitoring network to feed data into a new online community hub
As well as increasing flood risk resilience, the project will realise further benefits, including:
- carbon reduction and removal from atmosphere
- increased natural capital
- social and health benefits
- improvements to water and habitat quality
- flow regimes in watercourses
- contribution to existing local strategies
Our project will:
- provide sustainable public spaces with combined water management and nature-based solutions. This will deliver greater flood resilience and improved public wellbeing.
- develop a collective approach to flood management between partners and the community. This will ensure water management solutions are community led.
- improve understanding of flood risk benefits and the further benefits water management brings
How our project is testing innovation:
In the project's early stages, many different flood solutions are being tested. Once installed, we will be able to compare the realised benefits with the test results. This will provide an evidence base for use by the wider industry to justify future scheme investment. It will also be useful for spatial planning purposes, to ensure new developments remain focused on flood resilience.
As part of the Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme we will be testing 5 resilience actions and 1 policy challenge.
- Integrated water management solutions
- Nature based solutions
- Monitoring and management of local assets
- Minimise damages and disruption to small and medium sized businesses
- Community and voluntary sector action to be better prepared and recover more quickly
- Retrofitting drainage and water management arrangements in urban areas.
Visit the programme evaluation page to find out more.
Who we are working with:
Slough Borough Council (Lead Local Flood Authority), Buckinghamshire Council (Lead Local Flood Authority), Environment Agency: Berkshire and Buckinghamshire and Kennet, South Chilterns and Lower Thames, Thames Water Utilities Limited, The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), Atkins (Slough Borough Council’s consultants), Thames21, National Flood Forum (NFF), SSE Mayflower (Smart City Platform)
Delivering innovative surface water flood resilience in Slough and Buckinghamshire.
Our project places the community at its heart to deliver surface water flood resilience. We will use a 'sponge' catchment method to support communities and reduce the impacts of flooding. We will do this by concentrating flood measures in two catchment areas and monitoring their progress.
What is a sponge catchment?
The sponge catchment term comes from the sponge city idea. These are urban areas with flood management actions to capture, control and reuse excess surface water. This can be through man made drainage systems, or controlled flooding and storage using open land. The two areas targeted in Slough are the Salt Hill Stream and Chalvey Ditches, which are our 'catchment' study areas.
A key part of the project is community empowerment. It will give local residents the information they need to choose flood measures which work for them. This will result in improved, sustainable public spaces with greater flood resilience.
This project provides three streams of innovation to increase resilience:
- creating sponge catchments to store rainwater and reduce flood risk
- empowering the local community to play a key role in finding flood solutions
- creating a smart water monitoring network to feed data into a new online community hub
As well as increasing flood risk resilience, the project will realise further benefits, including:
- carbon reduction and removal from atmosphere
- increased natural capital
- social and health benefits
- improvements to water and habitat quality
- flow regimes in watercourses
- contribution to existing local strategies
Our project will:
- provide sustainable public spaces with combined water management and nature-based solutions. This will deliver greater flood resilience and improved public wellbeing.
- develop a collective approach to flood management between partners and the community. This will ensure water management solutions are community led.
- improve understanding of flood risk benefits and the further benefits water management brings
How our project is testing innovation:
In the project's early stages, many different flood solutions are being tested. Once installed, we will be able to compare the realised benefits with the test results. This will provide an evidence base for use by the wider industry to justify future scheme investment. It will also be useful for spatial planning purposes, to ensure new developments remain focused on flood resilience.
As part of the Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme we will be testing 5 resilience actions and 1 policy challenge.
- Integrated water management solutions
- Nature based solutions
- Monitoring and management of local assets
- Minimise damages and disruption to small and medium sized businesses
- Community and voluntary sector action to be better prepared and recover more quickly
- Retrofitting drainage and water management arrangements in urban areas.
Visit the programme evaluation page to find out more.
Who we are working with:
Slough Borough Council (Lead Local Flood Authority), Buckinghamshire Council (Lead Local Flood Authority), Environment Agency: Berkshire and Buckinghamshire and Kennet, South Chilterns and Lower Thames, Thames Water Utilities Limited, The Wildfowl and Wetlands Trust (WWT), Atkins (Slough Borough Council’s consultants), Thames21, National Flood Forum (NFF), SSE Mayflower (Smart City Platform)
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