Sewerage systems of the future?

The deep green reeds, yellow water lilies and gently splashing water simply look like an attractive water feature.

But in fact, this Sustainable Urban Drainage System (SUDS) could be the future of sewerage management.

The first drains built in Britain were Roman, and since then, engineers through the ages have tried to find the most effective way of removing waste from increasingly urban areas.

This has left water companies with a patchwork of old and ineffective pipes – in some cases, museum pieces – still taking the water.

The cost of replacing these with pipes fit for the 21st Century – that could deal with the warmer, wetter winters predicted by meteorologists – would run into tens of billions of pounds. And it is unlikely to happen.

“You simply cannot dig up places like Gloucester and London to place modern sewage pipes – it would be far too expensive,” says Mr Hughes.

“We have to find other ways of managing rainwater.”

And those ways do exist.

Rainwater collection is being put into some housing estates at present.

BBC