The Cost of Staying Inside the Red-Line Boundary
Public domain flood losses already drain £2.4 billion a year from the UK economy; projections reach £3.6 billion by 2050 if water retention and drainage remains a design afterthought. Lead Local Flood Authorities (LLFA) now stipulate runoff caps at the downstream watercourse and demand proof that upstream attenuation, green corridors and conventional pipes work in context with one another.
One Catalogue for Green and Grey
InfoDrainage bundles every major SuDS element including swales, bioretention cells, gravel trenches and wetlands, together with box culverts, oversized pipes and storage tanks. Each component is parameterised to the CIRIA C753 design tables, so hydraulic equations and maintenance notes follow the element automatically.
How the Optimiser finds the Sweet Spot
Set a discharge cap (for example, QBar rural), a water quality target or even a carbon budget. The optimiser sweeps pond footprints, storage depths and outlet diameters, re running the engine until every node status lamp turns green.
Typical run time: a 50 node network usually converges in under 90 seconds in Autodesk benchmarks.
Managing Multiple Scenarios in one File
The Phase Management panel stores concept, value-engineered and detailed layouts in the same .iddx file. Toggle visibility to focus only on a relevant phase or options, batch-analyse all phases overnight, then export a dashboard comparison of peak flow, surcharge risk and whole-life CO2. No duplicate files, no version-control chaos.
Bedfordshire Solar Farm Example
Faced with a ‘no-net-increase’ runoff mandate on a 43 ha, 20 MW solar park, Project Centre ran three attenuation concepts through the optimiser. The chosen design delivered 17% less storage volume, cut construction excavation by 1400 m³ and removed three weeks from the critical path timeline – facts that achieved board approval.
Therefore, by shifting from isolated ponds to algorithm-driven catchment hydraulics, InfoDrainage transforms SuDS compliance into land-saving, cost-saving engineering.
Still got Questions?
Book Training
Our Autodesk InfoDrainage training will teach you how to navigate the interface, build a drainage system and design pipes, import and export data, pond and suds design as well as flooding simulation.
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