Staffordshire’s Flood Risk Management team has been using KaarbonTech solutions to manage flood risk across the county. We caught up with Andrew Brett - Principal Flood Risk management team leader, and Chris Pitts - Flood Risk Project Manager, to find out more about how they are unlocking greater insights through Gully SMART.
Connecting information sources
With one single source of entry, Gully SMART pulls together all data into one place. Andrew highlighted the ease of using the system.
“It’s incredibly easy to use. It’s intuitive. Everything is in the place that you’d expect it to be. It’s as if it’s been designed by somebody that actually maintains assets.”
By combining open-source data with survey data, Gully SMART provides a detailed and accurate view of the drainage network, enabling a risk-based approach to be taken to maintenance. Flood risks can be identified and evidenced, and then a plan put in place to alleviate it. Simple and clear tools are available to show each element of the network, as Chris explains:
“Clicking onto an asset – a manhole, pipeline – you can get all the information; the last time it was surveyed, the condition, videos and photographs. There are several cases where what it was believed the infrastructure and the configuration was totally different to what KaarbonTech identified for us, and that in itself made us understand why flooding was occurring.”
The future of flood management
Flood management is changing, and Andrew told us how KaarbonTech’s SMART solutions are supporting statutory requirements.
“We have to now think about the four pillars – water quality, quantity, amenity and biodiversity – and if we don’t record how specific assets manage these four pillars, we are not completing our statutory requirements. We need to make sure that an application can start recording accurately and effectively, developments that have installed Blue-Green solutions, but also look at what we’re doing ourselves as mitigation and record information accurately in line with the four pillars.”
Chris reflected on how technological advancements and KaarbonTech services are facilitating a more efficient approach to flood risk management.
“I would describe KaarbonTech as a ‘resource multiplier’. The correctness of information enables me to do a lot more than a traditional project manager would be able to do over a period of time. It’s not just what the application does, it’s the support that we have in the background. Someone is always available to give us guidance and support and that’s the beauty of using KaarbonTech.”
By adopting a data-driven approach, Staffordshire’s Flood Risk Management team is seeing tangible benefits in how they address flood related challenges. Equipped with the right tools and support, they can now better understand their infrastructure, manage risks proactively, and meet their statutory responsibilities.