London wants more SuDS. Here’s how Arcadis is helping them calculate SuDS ROI.

As the pressures of urban growth and climate change continue to pinch urban centers, the calculation of return on investment and financial viability for long-term resilience strategies will become an essential element for infrastructure management.

Perhaps more to the point, calculating your return on investment in SuDS is important if you want to change the minds of people who may reflexively dismiss efforts to change the status quo. Are SuDS more expensive to implement and maintain, as some may insist, or are detractors simply taking a short-term view for what are intended to be long-term projects?

London’s big push into SuDS

This new webinar, in partnership with Arcadis and Flood Expo, focuses on evaluating the location and scale of potential flood mitigation benefits associated with a long-term commitment to retrofitting SuDS in our urban landscapes. It follows on from our webinar last year, Identifying the Value of Retrofitting SuDS in Urban Landscapes, which talked about scoping out solutions for the the London Sustainable Drainage Action Plan.

This new talk examines the recommendations made during the London Strategic SuDS Pilot Project and reports on the results. You’ll learn how Arcadis developed an enhanced model representation of two London boroughs to enable the critical evaluation of flood damages and the benefit of investment in SuDS retrofit projects.

Do you struggle with justifying SuDS (called LIDs in the US) in city projects? Ainley breaks down the technical workflow he uses to calculate and present his findings to stakeholders, which you can pattern your efforts after.

In this video, we also talk about:

• Utilising/adapting existing ICM 1D models
• Potential challenges in using detailed 1D-2D integrated ICM models
• Development of highway networks
• The pros and cons of running hundreds of SuDS scenario models
• Evaluating flood benefit using Python
• Identifying optimal sites and roads for investments in the SuDS retrofitting

Watch the webinar

Listen in as Simon Ainley talks with Water Innovation Manager Ruth Clarke about Arcadis’ collaboration with the UK Environment Agency, Thames Water, Transport for London, and several London borough councils to install and quantify the financial and community benefits to a long-term commitment to retrofitting SuDS in urban environments. Ainley estimates that flood damage can be reduced by half by simply implementing SuDS in just 2% of the landscape.