Water Services

Effective flood risk management and sustainable drainage strategies are essential to safeguarding people, property and our environment against climate change impacts. By implementing nature-based solutions, resilient infrastructure, and adaptive planning, we mitigate flood risks while enhancing biodiversity and water quality. Climate resilience measures, such as Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS) and floodplain restoration, support long-term adaptation, reducing vulnerabilities and ensuring regulatory compliance in a changing hydrological landscape.

Water is also a precious and finite resource, essential for life and a cornerstone of sustainable development. As populations grow and urbanisation expands, the demand for clean water increases while the pressures on our water resources intensify, exacerbated by climate change with increased frequency and intensity of extreme weather events such as floods.

In this context, development projects, if not carefully planned and real-estate transactional projects, if not appropriately assessed, can incur significant flood risks, leading to property damage, environmental degradation, and disruption to operations and local communities.

Antea Group's Water Services team provides expert guidance on all aspects of water management, helping you navigate these challenges and ensure the long-term sustainability of your project. By working with Antea Group, you can:

Minimise your environmental impact: Protect water resources, minimise pollution, promote sustainable water use, implement sustainable drainage systems and achieve nutrient neutrality.

Enhance project resilience: Mitigate the risks of flooding, water stress, and other water-related and associated climate hazards.

Comply with regulations: Ensure your projects comply with all relevant water and environmental regulations.

Improve project sustainability: Incorporate water-saving measures and enhance the overall sustainability of your development or asset.

A comprehensive Flood Risk and Drainage Assessment is crucial for many developments or real-estate transactions. Our experienced team environmental consultants assess potential flood risk sources (tidal, fluvial, surface water, groundwater, reservoirs, canals and sewers) and implement appropriate flood mitigation and climate resilience measures thorough Flood Risk and Drainage Assessments, which typically include:

• Flood Risk Analysis: Assess risk for all sources of flooding using Environment Agency and Local Authority flood data and analysing historical and relevant third-party flood data to inform development or investment decisions.
• Flood Risk Management: Recommend measures such as land raising above design flood levels and flood resistance and climate resilience measures to safeguard the development.
• Sustainable Drainage Systems: Outline sustainable drainage solutions such as swales, soakaways, attenuations basins and permeable paving to control and manage surface water runoff, mitigate flood risks, and ensure compliance with planning regulations.
• Master Planning Advice: Provide strong commercial and planning advice as to the suitability of proposed minor and major developments and requirements to support planning approval from a flood risk and drainage perspective.
• Topographical Analysis: Analysis of the land elevation data to identify potential surface water flow paths, flood risk and flood free areas and potential locations for SuDS.
• Hydrological Modelling: Utilising advanced modelling techniques to calculate river flows and volume during flood events, incorporating historical data and future climate projections to delineate flood extents.
• Climate Change Considerations: Incorporation of climate change allowances (peak river flow, peak rainfall intensity, sea-level rise, offshore wind speed and extreme wave height) for different climate scenarios to help minimise vulnerability and provide resilience to flooding and coastal change to ensure long-term resilience.

Our Water Services team offers a comprehensive range of services, including:

• Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA): Production of Water Environmental Statement Chapter to support EIA by evaluating potential effects of a development on water resources. It assesses flood risk, water quality, drainage, and hydrology, ensuring compliance with regulations and sustainable water management practices to minimise environmental impact and support planning approvals.
• Detailed Drainage Design: Provides detailed drainage design to support a Flood Risk Assessment beyond the outline stage to manage surface water runoff, provide water quality enhancements, mitigate flood risks and ensure compliance with planning regulations. It includes detailed hydraulic calculations, drainage layouts, and attenuation measures.
• Nutrient Neutrality: Supports planning by evaluating a development’s impact on nutrient levels in water bodies. It ensures that nitrogen and phosphorus inputs do not exceed sustainable limits, proposing mitigation measures to prevent water quality deterioration and comply with environmental regulations for planning approval.
• BREEAM Flood Risk Assessment: Supports sustainable development by evaluating flood risks and resilience measures in line with BREEAM criteria. It assesses site drainage, surface water management, and climate adaptation strategies to minimise environmental impact, enhance sustainability, and achieve higher BREEAM ratings for planning approval.
• Environmental Permitting: Assistance with obtaining necessary permits for water-related activities. We can provide representation at relevant meetings with pertinent authorities.
• Water Quality Assessment and Monitoring: Evaluation of water management, flood risk, drainage and water quality, assessing impacts and mitigation measures to support sustainable development and legal approvals.

We also offer comprehensive flood risk transaction support and detailed physical climate risk assessments, to help safeguard your developments and investments against climate-related challenges.

• Flood Risk Appraisals: Identify properties (single or portfolio), susceptible to flooding or other climate-related challenges that could disrupt operations or impact property values. .
• Physical Climate Risk Assessment: Assess the physical risk indicators including sea-level rise, fluvial, cooling degree days, heatwaves, heat stress, water stress, shrink swell, wind and wildfires.  

Contact Antea Group today to learn how our Water Services team can help you mitigate flood risks, ensure the sustainability of your development, and protect water resources.