Community-centric rainwater management

The Community-centric rainwater management project aims to encourage the widespread adoption of rainwater capture methods at a grass roots level by encouraging customers to offset their impermeable area by rainwater storage. The project is led by Thames Water and project partners include Isle Utilities, Indepen, South West Water, Wessex Water and Anglian Water. The project is funded through the Ofwat Innovation Fund. This is a £200 million scheme to encourage cross-sectorial collaboration and develop innovation within the water sector to ‘meet the evolving needs of customers, society and the environment’.

As part of the project, Our Rainwater has also been working in collaboration with Thames Water, the London Borough of Lambeth and Groundwork to provide free rainplanters to householders within Lambeth that have experienced surface water flooding. The rainplanters are designed to capture and slow the flow of rainwater into the drainage system to reduce the risk of the drainage system becoming overwhelmed during periods of heavy rainfall.

The causes behind localised flooding can be very complex and are influenced by a combination of several different factors such as rainfall intensity, sewage blockages, and high levels of runoff from impermeable surfaces. This scheme aims to mitigate the impact of surface water flooding by disconnecting downpipes from the sewage network. This is achieved by capturing the rainwater from roofs within rain planters to slow the flow into the drainage system. The rain planters have been designed by Thames Water and are a type of leaky raintank. Read more about the 6 benefits of a slow release water butt.