River Design

Water Environment offers a complete river design service, from initial concept through to detailed engineering design and all necessary consents. Our river engineers have extensive experience working with all classifications of watercourse — from simple land drains and ordinary watercourses through to critical ordinary watercourses and Environment Agency Main Rivers. Sensitive and careful design can provide robust and functional solutions that also deliver ecological, biodiversity and public amenity benefits.

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River Diversion and Daylighting

Occasionally it is necessary to alter the course of a river in order to accommodate a proposed development. Water Environment can offer a complete river diversion and reinstatement service, managing all aspects of the project, including:

Provision of initial concept ideas and draft designs
Negotiation with the Environment Agency and/or Local Authority
Hydrological analysis and hydraulic modelling to test the flood risk implications
Preparation of a full Flood Risk Assessment
Detailed river diversion design drawings for construction
Application of necessary consents
Supervision of construction and replanting of the new channel

Successful diversion and reinstatement of a river can provide increased development potential, but with sensitive and careful design it can also deliver ecological, biodiversity and public amenity benefits. Where culverted rivers can be daylighted, the opportunities for amenity and nature recovery are particularly significant.

Realigned river channel at Bicester Town Centre, Oxfordshire

Riverbank Restoration and Revetment

As part of a development, for erosion control or simply for landscaping or aesthetic reasons, it is sometimes necessary to restore a riverbank. Water Environment can provide the design, advice and all necessary consents to reinstate a natural channel.

We have extensive experience of the restoration of, and installation of new, river channels. Sensitive and careful design can not only provide a robust bank capable of withstanding flood events, but planting can also provide biodiversity and ecology benefits which can contribute to positive achievement of the WFD. In addition, restoration of rivers — particularly urbanised rivers with concrete channels — can provide amenity benefits and prove a real asset to a development.

Where hard revetment is required to protect banks from erosion, we design engineered solutions using materials appropriate to the setting, from gabion mattresses and rock armour to bioengineering techniques that combine structural performance with ecological benefit.

Flood Defences

Water Environment has extensive experience in the planning and design of Environment Agency-approved flood defences for riverside and coastal schemes. Our work has included some large, technically challenging schemes which are now built and providing protection from flooding to hundreds of homes. We will be involved throughout the process; from technical negotiations, to undertaking the required assessments, full detailed hydraulic modelling and the design of the required defences.

Erosion Control

Actively eroding riverbanks can threaten property and infrastructure and may contribute to deterioration of WFD status through increased sediment loads. We assess the cause and mechanism of erosion and design cost-effective interventions — ranging from simple planting and toe protection to full revetment and channel realignment — to arrest erosion and restore long-term stability.

How we work

Concept and feasibility — we develop initial concepts and test them against the flood risk, ecological and development objectives for the scheme.
Modelling and assessment — we carry out the hydrological analysis, hydraulic modelling and Flood Risk Assessment that prove the design works and does not increase flood risk elsewhere.
Detailed design and consents — we produce construction drawings and obtain the Flood Risk Activity Permits and consents the works require.
Construction support — we supervise construction and the replanting and establishment of the new or restored channel.

Why Water Environment?

River design sits exactly where our disciplines meet — hydrology, hydraulic modelling, geomorphology and engineering. We take a scheme from concept through modelling, flood risk and consent to a built, planted channel, all in-house, so the river works with its natural processes and delivers the ecological and amenity gains alongside the engineering. We work on all classifications of watercourse across England and Wales.

We are members of the Chartered Institution of Water and Environmental Management (CIWEM) and hold professional qualifications with the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE).