Sustainable surface water management: A handbook for SuDS

With more than 80% of the global population living on land that is prone to flooding, the devastation and disruption that flooding can cause will undoubtedly worsen with climate change (Lamond et al., 2011). The built environment has become more susceptible to flooding because urbanisation has meant that landscapes, which were once porous and allowed surface water to infiltrate, have been stripped of vegetation and soil and have been covered with impermeable roads, pavements and buildings (Charlesworth and Booth, 2014).
Surface water policy, to address flooding–related issues, differs widely across various regions and countries. For instance, in the UK, which is made up of four individual countries (England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland), Scotland has policies that have enabled sustainable drainage to be implement as a surface water management strategy for about the last 20–years; whereas, England, Wales and Northern Ireland have yet to completely embrace sustainable drainage devices in their planning policies and guidance, and hence it is not yet widely implemented (Charlesworth, 2010).