A £38 million Environment Agency scheme to upgrade the Foss Barrier in York has been officially opened. The project to improve the barrier, combined with completed flood defence work in York, better protects 2,000 properties and makes the city more resilient to the impacts of climate change. Following the devastating floods of Boxing Day 2015 […]
A water monitoring system developed in a collaboration between University of Birmingham researchers and Proteus Instruments, that remotely measures the quality of water in rivers, lakes and reservoirs, has resulted in a Queens Award for Enterprise (Innovation) for the company. The technology resulted from a Knowledge Transfer Partnership with researchers Kieran Khamis, Chris Bradley and David Hannah from […]
A study shows that yeast, an abundant waste product from breweries, can filter out even trace amounts of lead. A new analysis by researchers at MIT’s Center for Bits and Atoms (CBA) has found that inactive yeast could be effective as an inexpensive, abundant, and simple material for removing lead contamination from drinking water supplies. […]
The Environment Agency has completed additional flood defence work in Burton-upon-Trent, Staffordshire, to alleviate issues around the A38 at Branston. The work, which started last summer in 2021, reduces flood risk to some 397 properties, including 18 affected by the flood of February 2020. The whole investment in Burton, including £2 million from the National […]
The Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) has released a natural flood management manual. Natural flood management (NFM) is a tool to help reduce flood risk. It complements other flood risk management approaches and involves working across the landscape to protect, restore or mimic the natural hydrological processes that occur. These include increasing infiltration […]
The Local Government Association (LGA) has conducted research entitled ‘Nutrient and water neutrality: The impact of environmental protections on housing supply’. The LGA commissioned Residential Analysts and Canal Street Research to investigate the potential impact of environmental protections on new housing delivery. A news report in inews said that ‘sewage-polluted rivers blocking construction of thousands […]
Hybrid grey and green water infrastructures (HGGI) are combinations of grey, smart and green infrastructures, aimed at producing (climate) resilient water systems, reliably controlling peak flows and/or delivering clean water, sustaining environmental flows, and providing ecosystem, economic and social services. They can therefore be seen as supplying multiple benefits simultaneously. The implementation level (planning, designing, […]
The treatment of sewage (or urban wastewater) produces sludge that has to be treated, managed, used or disposed. Within the UK, sewage sludge is typically treated using anaerobic digestion and treated organic matter, known as biosolids (or bioresources) are primarily recycled to agricultural land. Recognising the potential impacts on water, soil and air quality the […]