What used to be once-in-a-century floods are happening every few years, accelerated by climate change and urbanisation. This is having devastating consequences, as we have seen across the North during the New Year’s Day floods.

So how can we better manage rainfall and what role can sustainable urban drainage play in helping mitigate extreme weather and flooding?

Paul Morris, director of Civic Engineers in the North, spoke to Mancunian Matters for a podcast exploring how nature-based solutions can help to solve the urgent issue.

Take a listen back here.

During the episode, Paul shares insights on the impact of the rapidly changing climate and how it is leading to increased temperatures and intense rainfall, resulting in more flood events.

“A lot of our water is entering the combined sewer network, and in extreme flooding events these sewers can overflow into rivers and streams, having a significant impact on the quality of water.”

Paul explains what green and blue infrastructure solutions are and how they reduce flood risk in a more natural way.

“It’s about recreating nature within an urban environment to help manage rainfall. There’s a series of SuDS features that can be utilised, but it’s bringing planting, draining water off the roads and hard standings into that natural basin, whether it’s a raingarden or a pond.

“The feature captures the water at source and absorbs it much more slowly – acting like a sponge – preventing water rushing into drainage networks, so it can dissipate over time at a much slower rate.”

He moves on to share the wider benefits such nature-based solutions being, including creating greener, more attractive streets, spaces and amenities which help to clean the air, store carbon, improve health and wellbeing and support active travel routes.

The episode concludes with Paul’s insights on the need for SuDS to be part of a wider approach, which includes natural flood management such as large-scale tree planting schemes, and combined with flood defences and a change in land use, as well as flood resilience in buildings.

You can find out more about our work on GMCA’s SuDS Design Guidance here.