Team urges bigger drain capacities in response to climate change

30 August 2007

An independent report on summer flooding in Hull earlier this year has warned that local authorities will need to increase drain capacity to cope with the effects of climate change.

The interim report, written by an independent review board at Hull University, said the June deluge was a ‘one in 150 year’ storm, but said the effects of climate change would include an increase in ‘extreme events’, such as freak rainfall, and that authorities should not rely on the current industry standard for drainage systems, which only give protection against one in 30 year storms.

‘There is no indication of whether this is regularly updated to incorporate new large storm events that will increase the size of a calculated one in 30 year storm, nor whether present day drainage systems are regularly re-checked and re-evaluated to ensure they meet new levels,’ said the report. ‘Furthermore, there appears to be no accommodation for climate change in these design criteria.

‘Nationally, we suggest that for urban drainage, the level of one in 30 years should be reviewed as a minimum, and that some additional capacity should be factored in for possible climate change.’

The report said Hull’s drains were overwhelmed and pointed out bottlenecks in the system where two or more pipes connected with one that didn’t have as much capacity, causing water to back up.

The review board said no one group was to blame for the problems, but said much more needed to be done to improve communication between the various agencies involved, including local authorities, the Environment Agency (EA) and water companies.

The board recommended that the EA look into predicting floods caused by extreme rainfall in the way they currently did for river and tidal flooding. A final report on the Hull flooding is due for November this year.

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