Green Space Wales

An initiative to promote natural drainage to help the sewerage network cope better with climate change and increasing urbanisation to reduce incidents of sewer flooding.

Click here to see video.

Click here to download our Surface Water Management Strategy.

Interactive house for property owners

In order to assist householders in making sustainable decisions about managing the rainfall run-off from their property, Welsh Water has developed an interactive house.

The house has a front view and rear view and shows a range of different techniques that can be applied such as using permeable paving on the driveway and patio, disconnecting drainpipes and channelling rainwater into a rain garden, green roofs, water butts and harvesting rainwater for re-use within the home.

Rainwater Harvesting

Environmental engineering company and water expert MWH is working with Welsh Water and manufacturers Aqualogic, to produce affordable wall-mounted rainwater harvesting systems that can be fitted to homes to reduce water consumption and down stream flooding.

As part of our surface water management strategy we are developing a low cost, low tech rainwater harvesting system that will reduce the amount of rainwater entering the sewage system. The water collected will initially be used only for toilet flushing, but this may be extended for garden watering and other external uses that does not require water of drinking quality.

The system is currently under trial at our offices in Cilfynydd and Nelson, and the lessons learned from the trial will be used to inform a larger scale trial.

Surface Water and the Classroom

A model has been introduced to support the Changing Climate lesson available at our education centres. Pupils are asked to consider the changes to Britain’s climate and the increase of severe storms resulting in additional rainfall going into the sewers. They carry out a practical activity to discover how porous various materials are.

The model demonstrates how our green spaces are being replaced with new development and non porous surfaces which assist with the problems associated with surface water run-off. During heavy rainstorms our sewer network can get overloaded with water which can then result in sewer flooding.

For more information about our education centres please click here.