Sustainable Drainage Systems – Webinar with James Hewetson-Brown

We have recently started a program of lunchtime webinars looking at specific landscaping topics and how wildflowers can contribute to their success.
We hope these webinars will be a useful tool for landscape professionals and will align with the various training modules we offer, including CPD sessions for Landscape Architects, our Accredited Partner Training Scheme for Landscape Contractors and Garden Designers and Council training days.
We conducted our first webinar at lunchtime last Friday and the topic was Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDs). We had a very good turnout despite initial technical difficulties and got some great questions and feedback. So we thought this month’s blog could look at the topics we discussed in the webinar and give you a link to go to the full presentation that was recorded as a result.
So rather than go through the whole presentation in this blog I am lifting some of the slides to give you an idea and hope that they whet your appetite to take advantage of the free recorded resource below.
[vimeo width=”600″ height=”500″]https://vimeo.com/328139139[/vimeo]
We looked at how SuDs offer a set of tools to mitigate water flow to prevent flooding, the relevance of wildflowers in these schemes and how their inclusion offers multifunctional options for any development:

What are SuDS?

We talked through the soft landscape options in SuDs and how wildflowers can contribute to these:
Soft landscape options

We then discussed four specific benefits wildflowers can bring to SuDs. The example below is a study by Portsmouth University looking at how the inclusion of wildflowers in a SuDs scheme can reduce pollution:
Pollution Mitigation

We then talked through a cautionary tale of when specifying wildflowers in a Suds scheme is not always the best choice. We went on to explore five wider benefits of wildflowers in urban greening and GI in general. The two examples below are improved biodiversity (which will be relevant when Biodiversity Net Gain is implemented):
Broader benefits

and how using wildflowers can help with meeting regulations:
Regulatory requirements

We finished with some case studies of the 4 soft landscaping SuDs options, some conclusions and then a few of the questions we were asked after the webinar and links to further reading.
The webinar is a 40 minute long seminar of pictures and audio (although the advantage of using the link is that you can fast forward where you like!). We hope it will be a useful resource to offer multifunctional ideas for any SuDs scheme.
Hope you enjoy the webinar and we look forward to the next one!