SUSTAINABLE SURFACE WATER MANAGEMENT
A HANDBOOK FOR SUDS

Water management is a key environmental issue for controlling floods and reducing droughts; sustainable drainage systems provide a clear alternative to traditional hard infrastructure.

The built environment has become more susceptible to flooding because urbanisation has meant that landscapes that were once porous and allowed surface water to infiltrate, have been stripped of vegetation and soil and have been covered with impermeable roads, pavements and buildings.

Sustainable Surface Water Management: A Handbook for SuDS emphasises the SuDS philosophy and explains the sustainable surface water management agenda with a wealth of insights brought together through the experts who have contributed chapters. By integrating physical and environmental sciences, and combining social, economic and political considerations, the book provides a unique resource for a wide range of policy specialists, scientists, engineers and subject enthusiasts.

It brings together experts across the whole field of SuDS from the social to the hard physical sciences in order to both highlight the breadth of the subject itself, but also to show the flexibility and multiple benefits that such an approach can bring to the management of surface water. By integrating the physical and environmental sciences, and combining social, economic and political considerations, a unique resource has been produced.

This approach addresses issues as diverse as flooding, water quality, amenity and biodiversity, together with the mitigation of, and adaptation to, global climate change, human health benefits and reduction in energy use. In straightened economic times, efficiency and efficacy of approaches are paramount; value for money, payback and whole life costing underlie all undertakings, and SuDS is no exception.

Many of the chapters have a UK focus, but globally the UK (and particularly England and Wales) lag behind such countries as the USA and New Zealand. Hence, chapters are included to cover issues from around the world, alongside particular designs associated with the implementation of SuDS in tropical areas, problems with retrofitting SuDS devices, SuDS modelling, water harvesting in drought-stricken countries using SuDS and the inclusion of SuDS in the climate change strategies of many large cities. Such issues and technologies are far-reaching and, as such, can easily be extended to other European and global nations.

The Editors

Susanne M. Charlesworth is Professor of Urban Physical Geography at Coventry University in the Centre for Agroecology, Water and Resilience.

Colin A. Booth is Associate Head of Research and Scholarship for the School of Architecture and the Built Environment and is Deputy Director of the Centre for Floods, Communities and Resilience at the University of the West of England, Bristol.