In 2003 responsibility for ownership and maintenance of Critical Ordinary Watercourses in the UK transferred from local authorities to the Environment Agency.
Halcrow has surveyed 900km of these important flood defence assets in the Thames, Midlands and South West regions, and compiled a comprehensive inventory and condition survey that will help the Agency to identify the optimum time to undertake maintenance.
The surveys involved:
- mapping the spatial location of all assets including banks, flood defences and structures
- detailed condition surveys
- sketching significant assets
- photography and video; and
- public safety risk assessments
The output was provided as a comprehensive GIS inventory to comply with the Environment Agency’s National Flood and Coastal Defence Database (NFCDD), which is used to develop long term monitoring and investment plans to assist with flood defence.
Halcrow has been involved with research and development of mobile data collection systems since 2000 and, in conjunction with the Environment Agency, identified the best solution as a ruggedised Panasonic Toughbook CF18 tablet computer running MapInfo software. Digital background mapping was used to spatially locate assets, and the data was uploaded directly to the Environment Agency’s database.
The project team was involved in lean project management training to help identify the most efficient delivery model. Breaking the project down to smaller deliverable elements led to shorter periods on site so that processing was quicker and the client received the data at staged points. This naturally removed waste, as the data was checked at more regular intervals, helping to identify and rectify anomalies without having to return to site.
We also suggested that other data could be collected while the survey teams were in these often poorly accessible areas, including a database of landowners, and locating invasive plant species, pollution incidents and excessive weed growth.
This commission was carried out through under Halcrow’s long term framework agreement with the Environment Agency, which offers financial incentives for delivery within budget. We completed the programme 20% under the original target cost, and the saving was shared between ourselves and the client.
Key performance indicators (KPIs) were implemented at various stages of the project to benchmark success and identify areas of improvement. We achieved a “good” score for communications, adequacy of deliverables, stakeholder consultation and environmental issues, and “excellent” for programme, financial management, teamwork and presentation of deliverables.