Coastal resort bathing water protected from rainwater run-off.

Combe Martin is a small resort located in a sheltered valley, at the western edge of Exmoor National Park on the north Devon coast.

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Coastal resort bathing water protected from rainwater run-off.

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Two water courses enter the 100 metre wide sandy bay, the Furze Park Stream and the River Umber which drains directly from the northern slopes of Exmoor. Rainwater from the steep slopes in the area, which is mostly agricultural, often floods the river, overcoming the sewerage network and impacting the quality of the bathing water.

Multiple improvements and repairs made to the serving combined sewer overflows over the past 25 years have so far failed to rectify the discharge of polluted water into the bay.

Due to insufficient water quality standards, as monitored by the Environment Agency under the Bathing Water Directive, bathing at Combe Martin has been classed as poor from 2017 until 2020. In 2020 alone, 62 pollution risk warnings were issued.

With the assistance of South West Water’s engineering consultants, Stantec, each house was equipped with a domestic version of the SDS Intellistorm® rainwater recycling and attenuation system.

This comprised of a slim, space-saving 275 litre capacity rainwater storage tank, connected to the main downpipe from the roof and fitted with a small, solar-powered and weatherprotected, computer-controlled box positioned at its side.

Together, the tanks have a combined storage capacity of over 9,500 litres which, if not being reused, are automatically released only when there is no pressure on the network.

Data received, via SDS SYMBiotIC™, over the first six months of the project indicated that a single ‘smart’ water tank stores as much water as 7 traditional water butts and is on course to attenuate more than 3,500 litres per year.

Residents consequently save money on their water bills by recycling the collected rainwater for uses such as watering the garden and washing the car.

Results show the benefits our SYMBiotIC™ rainwater management systems can deliver, realising total stormwater attenuation volumes 19 times greater than the volume of the tanks installed. This level of performance could not be realised in distributed, plot-scale systems without dynamic management. Data from this trial shows that without smart intervention, many systems where the water is not used by homeowners would have filled once and then remained full.

This is a great example of how smart technology has turned a system, initially developed with one particular purpose in mind, in this case drought mitigation, into a multi-faceted solution to addressing multiple water management issues on a retro-fit (as opposed to new-build) level – “joined up thinking”.


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