Roads & Highways

Ensuring our roads and highways are safe to drivers and the environment.

More than a third (38%) of all roads, rising to 46% by 2050, are located in areas at risk from one or more sources of flooding.* 
_{*Source: Environment Agency “National assessment of flood and coastal erosion risk in England 2024.”}

SDS stormwater attenuation systems ensure that the UK’s motorways and main roads remain free of flood risk, thereby ensuring their uninterrupted use with safe road surface conditions. 

SDS treatment devices protect receiving waterbodies and their natural surroundings from exposure to the many toxic pollutants that are carried in surface water runoff from our road network.  

SDS Aqua­-Xchange™ protects environment from contamination by surface water runoff pollutants.

The diagram below shows a typical application on a linear development, such as a road scheme, where a 250mm layer of SDS Aqua-Xchange™ is introduced into a filter drain, beneath a layer of standard aggregate. The use of a linear filter drain allows a flexible design system, removing the need for large areas of additional land take.

Solids suspended in the runoff are filtered and collected in the aggregate, while soluble pollutants are captured by the layer of Aqua-Xchange™ beneath.

This linear design offers a huge treatment capacity which can be more than eight times greater than in an end-of-pipe treatment device.

By introducing SDS GEOlight® tanks beneath the Aqua-Xchange™, the drain can also provide attenuation capacity and reduce downstream flood risk.