Engineers and scientists at Newcastle University have been working with industry partners to stem the flow of sewage into our rivers, lakes and seas.
At this year’s Northumbrian Water Group (NWG) Innovation Festival, we led the sprint workshop – ‘Zero Impact Storm: Is it possible?’ – exploring how harvesting and reusing rainwater could reduce spills from storm overflows.
Contents:
- Why our sewers overflow
- Sprint for solutions
- From big butts...
- ...to rivers in the sky
- Working with Wingrove
- Centre for research excellence
- Our partnership with NWG
- NWG Innovation Festival
Why our sewers overflow
100,000 kilometers of England’s sewer pipes were laid as ‘combined sewers’.
Taking both sewage and surface water run-off, they were designed to a standard size and fitted with storm overflows to act as relief valves during heavy or prolonged rainfall.
Over time, through population growth and climate change, these combined sewers have come under increasing pressure. Now, during a storm, more sewage and rainwater can flow through these systems than they were originally designed to handle – and that’s happening more frequently.
When a sewer system reaches capacity, storm overflows automatically spill excess, heavily diluted wastewater into our watercourses. This stops storm sewage backing up and flooding businesses, homes, and gardens. These spills are permitted by law and regulated by the Environment Agency.
Specific targets have now been set by Defra to reduce, and ultimately eliminate, storm overflows by 2050.
Sprint for solutions
During the festival, the sprint focused on the Newcastle city catchment area and the impact of storm water on the Howdon Treatment Works. Four teams created testable hypotheses geared to the public, industry or the wastewater network – solutions that NWG could now turn into real-life projects
The sprint was supported by an interdisciplinary academic team from Newcastle University's Centre for Water - Professor Claire Walsh, the centre's co-director and Head of Civil and Geospatial Engineering, Professor Jaime Amezaga and Dr Vassilis Glenis from the School of Engineering, Dr Ross Stirling, Director of the National Green Infrastructure Facility, Dr Armelle Tardiveau and Dr Daniel Mallo from the School of Architecture, Planning and Landscape and Jo Clark from the Business School.
'We all need water, but if it’s in the wrong place it’s an issue. That’s what this sprint is all about – it’s turning that problem into an opportunity; into a solution in itself.'
Professor Claire Walsh
'At Newcastle University, we’ve been working on these sorts of challenges for many years, primarily from a surface water management perspective, thinking about flood risk in our urban areas and how that’s going to change in the future due to urban creep and climate change.'
Richard Woodhouse, NWG Sustainable Drainage Manager and sprint lead, said: 'One of our company’s core values is innovation. Through the Innovation Festival we want to see how we could do things differently working with different organisations and the public.
'Through this sprint, we’re trying to do two things: to look at solutions for storing water locally so we don’t get spills into the environment, and to reduce water consumption.'
From big butts…
With 70-80% of rain that comes on to a property falling on the roof, sprint solutions included incentivised schemes to encourage residential and commercial customers within the catchment area to install water butts.
Linked to an app, homeowners would be able to monitor water butt level and control the release of captured water – holding it back from the network at times of peak flow.
Customers would also save on their water bills, reducing consumption by reusing the harvested water for their gardens or washing their cars.
Just a 60% uptake among targeted homes would have a significant impact on storm overflows.
Gravity-fed 30,000 litre ‘big butts’ for businesses, installed in the roof space of industrial premises were also modelled.
Requiring 3-6 hours to fill, the captured water would have multiple commercial uses – from mixing concrete to street cleaning – with a potential return on investment of £400-£1,000 per month.
…to rivers in the sky
Art met engineering in an imaginative prototype for a ‘river in the sky’, pushing the boundaries in a 'what if; scenario. This network of pipes would carry rainwater from roof to roof across the city, creating a giant water feature unique to Newcastle.
Water would be stored on the roofs of vacant and abandoned buildings, and in underwater storage tanks, slowing release into the sewerage system. Pipework would crisscross empty plots of land, with the water pumped through the construction by turbines and lit by LED lights that would change colour depending on flow velocity.
Rolled out as a pilot scheme, communities would be encouraged to fundraise to join the network as the project raised public awareness of water conservation and flooding, created new habitats, and contributed to the wellbeing effects of ‘greening’ the city.
Working with Wingrove
Initiatives to remove storm water at critical locations in the sewerage system focused on Newcastle’s Wingrove ward – a neighbourhood of terraced housing that produces a high volume of surface water run-off during heavy rain.
As this storm water drains away, it puts pressure on the local sewerage network, with the potential to cause flooding in other parts of the city.
The sprint proposed collaborating with residents to co-design sustainable drainage systems for the ward that would slow and reduce the impact of storm water on the network at peak times.
Solutions included water butts, rain gardens and planting schemes, that would also improve the local environment, community health and wellbeing. These additional benefits would complement work already underway to create the world’s first health innovation neighbourhood on a 29-acre brownfield site in Wingrove.
An app would allow home owners and community groups to visualise the schemes, as well as showing installation costs, cost savings and the reduction in flood impact for the catchment area.
Professor Walsh said: 'Where we need to reduce the impact of rainfall and storm water is not necessarily where that rain falls. But how do you convince communities and businesses higher up in the catchment area that they should change their behaviours?
'This sprint has thrown up a range of opportunities that could become mini research projects, or new data feeds that add to the knowledge and evidence needed to make a case for all of these solutions. This isn’t just going to stop after the festival.'
Professor Claire Walsh
Centre for research excellence
Newcastle University has over 70 years' experience in water-related research, teaching and innovation. Our Centre for Water is a transdisciplinary centre of research excellence.
A key aspect of our research is the National Green Infrastructure Facility (NGIF) based in and around the Urban Sciences Building at the Newcastle Helix innovation district. A living laboratory, it’s exploring sustainable solutions to water challenges in our cities and urban areas.
Another key facility is the Urban Observatory, a network of thousands of sensors collecting data on climate, people and traffic movements, water levels and quality, and air quality indicators.
We also lead the UK Research and Innovation (UKRI) funded Water Security and Sustainable Development Hub – a five-year project to improve water security globally.
The Hub has established a ‘Collaboratory’ (Collaborative Laboratory) in Colombia, Ethiopia, India, and Malaysia working towards achieving the UN’s Sustainable Development Goal 6, ensuring everyone has access to safe and sustainable water and sanitation by 2030. Collaboratories provide a co-creative and inclusive stakeholder engagement process for solving complex water security problems and conflicts.
Our work on water security was recognised with the prestigious Queens Anniversary Prize in 2023.
Monitoring senors buried within the National Green Infrastructure Facility at Newcastle Helix.
Our partnership with NWG
Our relationship with NWG spans over 25 years using shared facilities and delivering novel approaches to enhance water and wastewater treatments, maximising the use of water, and advancing techniques to generate energy from water.
Our collaborative research, Knowledge Transfer Partnerships, interns, post-doctorate, undergraduate programmes, PhD students and summer placements consistently generate real-world solutions to water related issues.
NWG Innovation Festival
Running since 2017, NWG’s Innovation Festival was founded to solve some of the biggest challenges facing the water sector. It brings together people from all over the globe to innovate solutions that have the potential to shape the future of the water industry.
This year’s event attracted 2,500 delegates from the worlds of business, science, technology, engineering, utilities and customer services.
You might also like:
- discover more about the work of our Centre for Water
- explore our National Green Infrastructure Facility (NGIF)
- open the Urban Observatory portal to discover more
- find out more about Prof. Claire Walsh by visiting her staff profile
- find out more about Prof. Jaime Amezaga by visiting his staff profile
- see the 2024 NWG Innovation Festival in action
- read more about our partnership with the Northumbrian Water Group
