Glasgow City Council: demonstration project Glasgow Surface Water Management

This has led to discontinuities in capacity which results in constraints in the watercourse systems which can cause flooding during heavy rainfall.  In parallel with this, the existing Victorian sewerage system is out of date and in urgent need of improvement to prevent it discharging polluted water into watercourses.  These issues are creating a significant economic problem in that development is unable to take place while water management systems are so unstable.

This investment focuses on part of the city where the redevelopment of a canal corridor provides an opportunity to devise a surface water management plan. This approach would not only provide serviced sites for a range of new developments and a change in land use but it would also help reduce surface water entering the existing combined sewer systems thereby achieving one of the objectives of the Water Framework Directive.

Deliverables are divided in 3 phases:

Phase 1: A study is to be undertaken within the development corridor to collate data on the existing surface water and sewer infrastructure. This work will link into the Glasgow Strategic Drainage Plan macro study thus allowing the capacity of the existing systems to be analysed. This phase will then look at the findings and come up with recommendations of how best to separate the surface water from the sewer system and redirect this to the canal using it as a surface water collector.

Phase 2: From the study’s recommendations, a demonstration project will be commissioned and constructed to give an example of how best to manage the water in that particular area of the city.  The demonstration project will implement:

• a construction for segregation of sewer and surface water
• a construction for the provision of grey water for recycling
• earthworks to develop the green space providing environmental opportunities for biodiversity improvements
• a study into potential use of wind turbines to pump water to collector systems and possible provision of micro-hydro power

Phase 3: Guidelines for the spatial planning of the corridor as a whole will be developed. The investment will result in the following deliverables:

• An integrated solution for surface water management in the Glasgow area
• A segregation of sewer and surface water drainage system in the area
• The provision of grey water for recycling
• Green space linked to attenuation providing environmental opportunities for biodiversity improvement
• Study into potential use of wind turbines to transport water to collector systems and possible provision of micro-hydro power