ABSTRACT
Development of an urban area can have a huge impact on drainage, as discussed in Section 1.2 and represented in Figs 1.2 and 1.3. Rain that has run off impermeable surfaces and travelled via a piped drainage system reaches a river far more rapidly than it did when the land and its drainage was in a natural state, and the result can be flooding and increased pollution. Rather than rely on ‘end of pipe solutions’ to these problems, the recent trend has been to try to move to a more natural means of drainage, using the infiltration and storage properties of semi-natural features.
