Sewer and highway drainage issues cause more than 20 per cent of Newcastle’s flooding incidents.

Flooding is one of the major impacts of climate change-related weather events and permeable ground being replaced by hard surfaces, creating more surface water to be drained via sewers. 

The council’s gully cleansing programme is based on an historic risk-based schedule. This information cannot identify or address issues that arise between inspections.

Furthermore, it is difficult to draw conclusions about the overall state of the drainage network and how it reacts to weather events.

Solving the problem

About ten flood risk locations in the city were identified by Newcastle City Council.

A business case was developed for a trial of Internet of Things (IoT) gully sensors capable of measuring water and silt levels.

A platform to capture and analyse the data was designed in conjunction with Newcastle University’s Urban Observatory.

Detailed specifications and requirements were developed to support a formal procurement exercise, to secure solutions for the provision of real-time information to:

• • Indicate when and where flooding might occur;
  • Predict how weather events will impact the drainage network;
  • Send alerts to nominated email addresses; and
  • Dispatch crews to the right locations at the right time (operational effectiveness and efficiency).

Key outcomes

In total, £5,000 of external funding was secured in 2020 to fund the pilot deployment and evaluation for ten sensors.

These will be trialled at up to 30 priority locations at risk of flooding across the city.

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