Practical guidance on surface water management & drainage for field practitioners

The project first undertook a scoping study in 2017 which identified the surface water management issues practitioners currently experience in the field. This insight was then used to deliver this guidance document. This project looks to align with HIF’s overall Surface Water Challenge aims and fill a gap identified in the Gap Analysis in Emergency Water, Sanitation and Hygiene Promotion report

Guidance Summary

Appropriate and adequate surface water management is essential to humanitarian response. To date, there has been limited guidance available to practitioners summarised as follows:

1. Little information beyond basic assessment of flood risk and implications of standing water on a site.
2. Limited guidance on surface water quality with most of the information focussing on the management of water quantity; and
3. Few mitigation techniques and their suitable use have been widely publicised.

This guidance seeks to address this by:

• Focussing the outcome of good surface water management on health and wellbeing of people and the environment, through considering both water quality and quantity;
• Minimising a variety of closely linked vulnerabilities;
• Maximising opportunities available, to provide wider benefits to each site; and
• Promoting seven prevention and mitigation techniques to try to manage surface water as close as possible to the point where it enters the system whilst also considering the wider catchment. These seven techniques relate to eleven components listed in the guide.