A climate challenge we can’t ignore
Climate pressures are already exposing the limits of traditional drainage systems. More frequent storms, more intense rainfall, and networks designed for a different era have created a growing risk of surface water flooding. Much of the UK’s drainage network was designed for rainfall patterns that no longer exist, creating capacity challenges that no amount of reactive maintenance can solve.
At the same time, local authorities are preparing for new responsibilities under Schedule 3 of the Flood and Water Management Act, which will bring SuDS management more formally into their remit. Yet many councils lack a single, comprehensive record of SuDS installations, their specifications, or their maintenance status.
Statutory duties around flood risk management are clear. Authorities must understand the structures and features that influence flood behaviour across their areas. The challenge is not awareness of responsibility, but having the practical, connected tools to maintain that understanding as networks evolve and weather pressures intensify. Without this visibility, decisions remain reactive and fragmented, when what is needed is long-term resilience. This shift, from fragmented visibility to structured, whole-network understanding, sits at the heart of KaarbonTech’s role as Resilience Partner to local authorities.
The problem with fragmented data
Drainage networks are complex, interconnected systems; but in practice, management is often siloed.
Gullies attract public attention and complaints, but other critical features such as catchpits, manholes and soakaways are frequently overlooked.
Section 19 investigations generate valuable information, but these reports are often stored in isolation, disconnected from flood records or asset maps.
SuDS assets are frequently unrecorded, misrepresented (stored as points rather than polygons), or completely absent from authority systems – even when they exist on the ground.
Flooding itself is recorded as a point or a note rather than a spatial extent, which tells you where something happened but not the scale, the assets affected, or whether it is getting worse over time.
Unadopted SuDS on new developments are largely invisible. Water companies have adopted just 2% of submitted SuDS schemes. The rest sit unowned and unmaintained, with the LLFA holding no record of what is there or who is responsible.
This leaves authorities with blind spots that make it harder to plan, harder to respond, and harder to invest wisely in long-term resilience.
Extending the SMART Suite
As part of the broader Resilience Partner offering, KaarbonTech has now expanded its SMART platform to provide a joined-up approach to drainage, SuDS, and flood risk management. This is not a bolt-on feature; it is a step-change in how authorities can manage blue and green infrastructure as a single, connected network. It reflects a move away from isolated asset management towards structured, risk-led network visibility.
The new capabilities enable authorities to:
Map SuDS installations with full geometry – showing coverage areas rather than simple points, so they are represented accurately within the wider drainage network
Validate and audit SuDS against design specifications and standards , providing evidence that assets are built and performing as intended.
Embed SuDS into inspection regimes alongside gullies and other drainage assets , ensuring they are maintained as operational infrastructure rather than treated as standalone features.
Maintain complete activity histories, regardless of who carries out the work, creating a defensible operational record.
Apply risk modelling tools to prioritise inspections and interventions , focusing resources where vulnerability and consequence intersect.
Prepare for events before they happen – live Environment Agency flood warnings (Alert, Warning, Severe) surface which assets sit within each warning zone, filtered by condition and maintenance status. Work packages can be dispatched to crews directly from the warning, closing the loop between national flood alerts and on-the-ground response.
Understand how water moves – assets can be viewed in connected sequences, showing how a soakaway feeds a pipe that drains to a pond. When an upstream asset fails or fills, officers can see what is at risk downstream. This builds towards a treatment train understanding of the network, with resilience and downstream assets included as part of a complete picture.
Plan with weather awareness – forecast precipitation can be viewed alongside asset and flood risk data in a single map view, giving teams the context to act before conditions deteriorate rather than responding after the fact.
Understanding community impact
The platform introduces a public-facing reporting tool that enables communities to contribute real-world flood information.
Instead of dots on a map, residents can capture flood extents spatially. Multiple reports can be intelligently merged, giving officers a clearer, more accurate picture of the scale and impact of events.
For authorities running flood warden programmes, the platform extends the role digitally. Wardens can submit polygon-based incident reports directly into the system, formalising community observation as a structured data source rather than an informal call to a duty officer. This bridges professional monitoring and community knowledge at the scale of an event, enabling a richer, more timely picture than either could provide alone.
By automatically linking flood extents with nearby assets, including SuDS, authorities can trace cause and effect more easily and respond more effectively. This strengthens situational awareness during events while building a clearer evidence base for longer-term resilience planning.
Digitising Section 19 investigations
For the first time, Section 19 investigations can be spatially and digitally managed within the platform.
Flood extents and related documentation are directly associated with the investigation.
Records, photos, and summaries remain permanently linked as part of the asset history.
Summaries can be generated at the click of a button, providing consistent evidence for future reference or funding cases.
Defects and inspection records for highway drainage assets sit alongside flood records in the same platform. When a flood event is recorded, related gully conditions, overdue cleans, and service requests in the affected area are immediately visible – giving flood and highways teams a shared operational picture for the first time.
This transforms what was once a static report into a living record that can inform future strategy, whilst also significantly reducing the time officers spend collating evidence, locating historic files, and rebuilding context for funding bids or scrutiny.
The legal case for good recordkeeping is established. The documented evidence of what was known, when it was known, and what action was taken is a practical defence against liability. A complete, time-stamped, spatially accurate record is that evidence. Scattered spreadsheets and disconnected systems are not.
Empowering authorities and communities
This release is not just about new features – it reflects a wider shift towards structured, connected flood resilience.
By combining technical data with lived experience:
Flood risk officers can see how water movement affects networks in practice.
Communities can directly report the impact on daily life, from blocked school entrances to inaccessible footpaths – with their contributions captured as spatial data that feeds directly into the authority’s picture of risk.
Authorities can build a long-term picture of flood risk, supporting emergency response, strategic planning, and investment.
With climate impacts intensifying, weather patterns becoming less predictable, and statutory changes on the horizon, local authorities need a way to manage drainage, SuDS, flood records, investigations, and forecast awareness within one connected system that reflects the way water actually moves and assets interact.
KaarbonTech’s expanded SMART suite forms part of its wider Resilience Partner approach, supporting authorities to protect communities, strengthen resilience, and plan with confidence in a changing climate.