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Within Birmingham there are four main research themes/demonstrations:
Green roof research and demonstration projects
Green roof is a general term for any roof covered with a growth substrate with plants growing on it, and as such, green roofs vary enormously in their type and function. They are generally split into two main types: intensive green roofs, which are essentially roof-top parks and gardens, which are characterised by deep growth substrates, high maintenance and high costs; and extensive green roofs, which are characterised by thin growth substrates, low maintenance and lower costs; but both of these terms encapsulate a huge array of roof types. The term brown roof has been used in a variety of contexts, but is here used to describe a type of extensive green roof that is designed to mimic brownfield sites at an early stage of succession. When choosing a type of green roof it is very important to realise that the way a roof is designed will influence the environmental benefits associated with that roof, and that designing a roof to maximise one environmental benefit can potentially trade off against other environmental benefits. Click to read more.
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Groundwater-surface water interactions
Over the past decade, the UK has been improving its water quality and has been opening up previously disused watercourses. It has now been found that groundwater contaminated by pollutants is entering into streams and other water bodies. It is uncertain however, the extent of natural remediation, the conditions under which this happens and which additional attenuation could be provided through surface water course modifications. This project is being undertaken with the Environment Agency for England and Wales and aims to address these issues through a programme of research on the River Tame over the next three years.
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Groundwater reuse
Groundwater levels are rising, which may cause buried structures (such as basements and service tunnels) to flood, and it also needs to be managed in terms of stormwater runoff. Urban groundwater has the potential to be a valuable source of water, and therefore, we must define how to use groundwater and aquifers effectively. Research is being carried out in association with the Environment Agency into the occurrence and mobility of viruses in groundwater and their potential risks to health. It is important to qualify and quantify the risks before exploitation of underground reservoirs can be carried out. Long term monitoring of viral populations and their relationship to pollution from sewers is being carried out in addition to experiments which are looking at the mobility of the pollutants and the risk they pose to groundwater abstraction schemes.
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Integrated urban water management
Conventionally water supply, wastewater and storm water are viewed as three distinct areas in the urban water system, but clearly they are related. In order to properly asses options for reducing waste, minimising costs and decreasing energy demand is dependant on a quantified overview of the whole urban water cycle. This SWITCH research theme aims to produce a scoping model capable of assessing the interaction between all three areas, and although it will be benchmarked against data from Birmingham, it will be general enough to be applied to other towns and cities. It is not intended to give highly accurate results, but is meant to give a general picture of the water balance as a whole. It will be written using Visual Basic and will have an ArcGIS interface. This work is being undertaken by PhD student Ewan Last at The University of Birmingham under the supervision on Professor Rae Mackay.
