Flood and water management has risen up the political agenda dramatically since the 2007 summer floods and the ensuing report from Sir Michael Pitt published in June2008 which examined both how to reduce the risk and impact of floods, and the emergency responses.
And the highways industry has not stood still since then, the weather has not allowed them to. The 12 month period ending in March this year saw every single county suffer ‘extreme rainfall’ taking the 12 month average, according to Michael Whitehead, head of drainage and water environment at the Highways Agency.
To underline how relevant highways drainage is to flooding, Mr Whitehead said the organisation ‘found that in a typical year we had about 1800 carriageway flooding incidents on the network, about 60% of those were asset related, 40% were due to extreme weather events’.
Mr Whitehead was speaking at a Highways Maintenance Efficiencies Programme (HMEP’s) event in partnership with the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation this spring. Also speaking was Will Rogers, associate director at engineering and environmental consultants URS, who said: ‘Flood risk management and drainage management will become more challenging in future.
‘The public will continue to expect more, risk management has got a very high profile now. I think it’s politically very high on the agenda. Funds are tight as we know, so it’s about doing more with less, and climate change is going to bring more stormy weather. No one knows exactly what’s going to happen but we need to be ready for the worst.’
The event promoted the HMEP’s guidance on the management of highway drainage assets published in November 2012, which Mr Rogers helped review. It contains 12 recommendations backed up by 16 case studies which represent up-to-date best practice.
‘Each of the projects in the case studies produced demonstrable benefits. All have improved the management of drainage assets,’ Mr Rogers said, adding that ‘data and the handling of data is fundamental to drainage. Seven out of the 12 recommendations talk about data’.
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This extends not only to the capture and use of data but also the sharing of data both within local government departments and outside with groups like local water companies and water boards.
Mr Rogers stressed that some council highways officers and engineers he had spoken to did not seem to understand the importance of cross-departmental working on data, particularly with the finance and IT departments.
The event also showcased the partnership working between Nottingham, Derby and Leicester City Councils, which produced a good practice guide to flood risk management predominantly for urban authorities last year. The document is now available on the Nottingham City Council website.
Peter Wells, highway asset management lead at Nottingham City Council, said: ‘The main aim was of the project was to share expertise about drainage inventory - one of the main tasks was to find an appropriate way of collecting data - and implement methods of recording maintenance activities, which I think the project has done a good job of doing.’
One key factor Mr Wells highlighted was the importance of remote working in collecting and storing data.
‘Mobile working has removed our dependency on paper based systems and clerical support. We are now able to deploy people in the field remotely,’ he said, adding that all the information in one system so everyone can see the work being done.
‘It increases our working reported performance, monitoring capabilities, enables colleagues to understand issues in real time. In the long-term we think it will help build up a picture of known hotspots and improve response times, cutting a lot of needless stages in the process.’
He adds: ‘I think we made a lot of progress from working collaboratively together, could not have dreamed to do as much work alone.’
These are just two documented examples of the wealth of best practice in local government which will need to be drawn on - and no doubt develop even further - to cope with the task ahead.
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