New Book Announcement: Urban Stormwater and Flood Management

I am pleased to announce the new book “Urban Stormwater and Flood Management: Enhancing the Liveability of Cities“.

This book brings together the experiences of engineers and scientists from Australia and the United Kingdom providing the current status on the management of stormwater and flooding in urban areas and suggesting ways forward. It forms a basis for the development of a framework for the implementation of integrated and optimised storm water management strategies and aims to mitigate the adverse impacts of the expanding urban water footprint. Among other topics it also features management styles of stormwater and flooding and describes biodiversity and ecosystem services in relation to the management of stormwater and the mitigation of floods. Furthermore, it places an emphasis on sustainable storm water management measures.

Population growth, urbanisation and climate change will pose significant challenges to engineers, scientists, medical practitioners, policy makers and practitioners of several other disciplines. If we consider environmental and water engineers, they will have to face challenges in designing smart and efficient water systems which are robust and resilient to overcome shrinking green spaces, increased urban heat islands, damages to natural waterways due to flooding caused by increased stormwater flow. This work provides valuable information for practitioners and students at both senior undergraduate and postgraduate levels.

The book is part of the Springer series ‘Applied Environmental Science and Engineering for a Sustainable Future’. You can pre-order it now on Amazon (or try the UK, Australian or Canadian sites).

Meandering of the Padma River

A nice visualisation of a river system in Bangladesh cutting its way back and forth across the landscape.


The ‘blue’ channels are derived from Landsat 5 and Landsat 8 images. The NASA pages also include links to the natural colour source images, which are very worthwhile themselves:

1988
2000
2018

Large scale, public visualisation of flood risk

Waterlicht” is a Dutch installation by Daan Roosegaarde that seeks to raise public awareness of rising sea levels.

It has been shown so far in places such as Amsterdam, London, New York, Paris, and Toronto. The net effect of the experience is specific to the site but Roosegaarde uses LEDs, lenses and humidity to make the magic happen.

A quick video:



These kind of installations — experiences, really, would seem to hold significant potential.

Plastic /ˈplæs.tik/: Changeable into a new shape

April 16, 2018: People not using their reusable water bottles, poll finds (Southend Standard)

“While more than half (55%) said they owned a reusable water bottle, 17% of the 2,138 people questioned by YouGov have one but do not regularly use it and 2% have never used the one they own.”

April 24, 2018: Video shows sea of plastic bottles after London Marathon (The Independent)

“We have to change”

April 25, 2018: UK To Ban All Plastic Straws, Cotton Swabs, And Single-Use Plastics (Forbes)

“The UK is set to ban all sales of single-use plastics, including plastic straws and cotton swabs from the country as early as next year. Prime Minister Theresa May announced the new ban during a meeting with Commonwealth nations, noting that plastic waste is one of the greatest environmental challenges the country faces.”

May 1, 2018: Southend beachgoers leave behind piles of rubbish (BBC)

“Beachgoers left behind piles of rubbish after enjoying the bank holiday weekend in the sun.
Heavy machinery had to be used to clear the beach at Southend, Essex, after it proved a popular destination for thousands of people over the long weekend.”

Hard Choices in Flood Management: The Flooding of Buffalo Bayou

Bloomberg has another great feature story up today with relevance for ‘water’ people. It discusses the U.S. government making the difficult choice to flood a Houston neighbourhood during Hurricane Harvey to prevent a potentially much more deadly reservoir failure event.

That evening [of August 27, 2017], the Harris County Flood Control District held a press conference at which it announced that the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers would begin controlled releases at the Addicks and Barker dams surrounding West Houston. The two massive reservoirs retain water that gathers in the prairie west of the city, forming Buffalo Bayou, which runs down the Energy Corridor, through downtown, out the Houston Ship Channel and, finally, into the Gulf of Mexico. The water behind the dams was rising more than 6 inches an hour, and the flood control district said residents should be prepared to leave the next morning.
But the water level rose even faster than expected that night—Harvey brought 51 inches of rain, all told. The Army Corps won’t confirm exactly when the releases began, but legal complaints and residents say the floodgates opened at about 1 a.m., sending a rush of water toward Buffalo Bayou while many people were sleeping. Just after 1:30 a.m. the Corps posted a press notice on social media stating that the dam releases would amount to 8,000 cubic feet of water per second. “If we don’t begin releasing now, the volume of uncontrolled water around the dams will be higher,” Colonel Lars Zetterstrom, the Corps’ Galveston district commander, was quoted as saying. “It’s going to be better to release the water through the gates directly into Buffalo Bayou.” The danger was that the water would flow uncontrolled into homes located upstream from the reservoir, crest the reservoir walls downstream, or crack a section of the Barker dam that was under repair. Had either dam failed, the Houston Chronicle later wrote, West Houston would have been left with “a week of corpses by the mile.”

[…]By Friday, Sept. 1, with water still gushing through the floodgates, conditions in the Energy Corridor had worsened to the point that Mayor Sylvester Turner issued a voluntary evacuation order there. “I know people are staying because they want to protect their property,” he said. “But if you are living in a home today with water in your home, that situation is not going to change for 10 to 15 days.”

[…]On Saturday, as floodwaters elsewhere in Houston were receding, Turner had no choice but to make the evacuation mandatory for the 4,600 Energy Corridor dwellings “already flooded by water.” Three hundred people, his office said, had remained in their flooded homes. Turner also cut off electricity to the area and established a midnight to 5 a.m. curfew to help police isolate anyone looting evacuated homes. “Put your own personal safety above your property,” he said in the order, explaining that “the floodwaters there are caused by the U.S. Corps of Engineers’ controlled releases of water.”

As the article makes clear, the resulting lawsuits are beginning to get underway.