Living with Water Projects: Aquagreen infrastructures
Approximately £60m will have been spent in the six years 2015 to 2021 to help reduce the risk of tidal flooding in Hull, with schemes including Humber Hull Frontage, Hessle Foreshore and Paull Tidal Defence. In addition, approximately £90m is being invested to reduce the risk of fluvial flooding, on projects such as the River Hull Defences and Holderness Drain.
There are, however, multiple challenges to increasing resilience to surface water flooding in Hull and Haltemprice, including topography – a complex and integrated drainage system and geology.
The complex and unique nature of flood risk in Hull and East Riding underpins the essential need for Risk Management Authorities to work together. Whilst the detrimental effects of flooding spread far and wide, the collaborative delivery of flood management in tandem with social and economic regeneration, facilitates industry-leading opportunities to maximise broader benefits and financial efficiency across city and regional responses.
3 min read
Water sensitive urban regeneration
The Living with Water (LWW) Partnership is a collaboration between Yorkshire Water, Hull City Council, East Riding of Yorkshire Council and the Environment Agency. The aspiration of the partnership is to work together with public sector, private sector and communities to co-design and develop water sensitive urban regeneration which manages flood risk and enhances the environment and broader wellbeing of the region.
The LWW Partnership is in the primary stages of developing two major blue-green infrastructure solutions which will attenuate surface water flows, increasing resilience whilst providing significant biodiversity and amenity benefits. This approach focuses on using nature-based solutions, such as storage ponds, wet-woodland and bioswales to mimic the way water would naturally flow through a landscape and releasing it slowly into the network. This work is part of a £50m proposed investment in surface water management in Hull and Haltemprice over the next five years, focused on blue-green infrastructure. As well as the flood risk benefits associated with this investment, the Ciria B£ST tool has been used to calculate up to £14m of additional benefits in health, amenity, education and biodiversity.
A holistic, city-wide solution
The two aforementioned major infrastructure projects are being developed alongside a portfolio of smaller scale interventions and a study which will identify the medium and long-term approaches to managing surface water flood risk. The LWW study will propose a holistic, city-wide solution that addresses flooding under normal and extreme events and includes:
- Natural flood management
- Larger scale SuDS
- Regeneration
- Sacrificial flooding alongside more traditional grey infrastructure.
Adaptation & Resilience
Protecting future growth
Social and Economic regeneration
Blue-green infrastructure
City-wide solution
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As well as the flood risk benefits, the Ciria B£ST tool has calculated up to £14m of additional benefits in health, amenity, education and biodiversity.”
The project will give rise to a series of possible interventions to help reduce the risk of surface and sewerage flooding, and it will identify opportunities to utilise existing areas of green space, road networks and housing stock to create attenuation and reuse opportunities alongside more traditional engineering solutions. The study will also provide an evidence base for enhancing planned regeneration with water-sensitive urban design.
Alongside a wider portfolio of LWW projects, the intention of the study is to provide a visualisation and documented evidence base focused on surface water management, to drive future investment in Hull and Haltemprice. This will focus on flood resilience infrastructure and where the enhancement of planned development and regeneration can provide an opportunity to further contribute to surface water management and flood resilience.
Contact
Invest Humber: Clean Growth in the UK’s Energy Estuary was created and is managed by Future Humber.
Future Humber promotes the region's distinctive strengths to the widest audience and accelerates opportunities to unlock the potential in the Humber.
Diana Taylor is the Managing Director of Future Humber. She is responsible for guiding the vision and strategy to market the Humber to the UK, Europe, and beyond. Diana works with partners and stakeholders to build the voice of the region and enable businesses and organisations within the Humber to succeed and grow.
If you have a question about Invest Humber or would like to find out more about any of the projects included on the website, you can contact Diana below.
