A national SuDS collaboration and evaluation platform: SuDS-iQ

Progress

SuDS-iQ has made strong progress across two major development phases: building new decision support modules and enhancing the collaboration platform. 

Several new planned features are now implemented, including tools that allow users to upload and integrate elevation data into their designs, compare multiple design options, and share projects with collaborators both inside and outside the SuDS iQ platform.

Alongside these planned activities, the SuDS-iQ team has delivered additional improvements to streamline the design experience - such as estimating standard parameters, constraints to support more buildable solutions, and real time statistics to help users identify design issues early.

Tasks that have already been completed as part of Phase 2 (New Modules / Decision Support Tool Build Phase) and Phase 4 (Collaboration Platform: Tools and User Interface Integration):

• The second PSG meeting was held on 5th December 2025.  3rd PSG meeting planned for late June 2026, following 3rd round of regional co-creation/collaboration workshops.
• Task 2.3 SuDS Standards compliance evaluation tool:  A comparison of scheme performance against national standards.  Note: a new compliance proforma/template has recently been developed by CIRIA and the Environment Agency are due to publish end May 26.  We will need to review outputs following publication to ensure alignment and to maximise benefit of tool to users.
• Task 2.4 DEM and land use layer import and interrogation functionality: The ability for users to upload their own DEM data, visualise it as part of model build, and interrogate it to help with design.
• Task 2.5 Option comparison functionality: The ability to compare multiple different solutions for a particular site, or solutions for other sites.
• Task 4.1 Collaboration platform and embedded tools: The ability to share projects with other registered SuDS-iQ users (for direct collaboration) or non-registered users (for consultation).
• Task 2.6 Stakeholder learning functionality: Following feedback from user workshops, this learning functionality has been developed to support users to step through the process of understanding site risks and opportunities (by presenting relevant accessible site datasets to users and/or creating links to others), creating an output that summarises these for the user and suggests the types of SuDS that may be appropriate for the site.

Tasks that are underway include:

• Task 2.1 Pre/post SuDS comparison tool: This will build upon the existing comparison functionality (Task 2.5) to run a simple model for a "pre-SuDS" state that can be compared like any other model.
• Task 2.2 Carbon and cost tool: Our subcontractors Stantec are currently delayed in producing an updated version of the cost and carbon Excel tool. All of the required digital infrastructure to integrate it into SuDS-iQ has been completed. From our exploratory work and discussion with Stantec, this conversion work is already well understood.
• Model testing and validation

Additionally, general improvements have been made to the platform that are not associated with a specific task. These improve the usability of the platform to make it easier for users to rapidly plan and evaluate a viable SuDS:

• Changes to the underlying data that make up a SuDS-iQ model, allowing us to suggest more defaults (e.g. capturing plan areas from SuDS outlines on the geoplan, and inferring as many parameters as possible).
• Adjusting inputs to make a more "buildable" output (e.g. restricting pipe sizes/materials to ones that are readily available).
• Generating and displaying some statistics in real-time. This allows for users to identify and resolve design issues without having to run a time-consuming hydraulic model.

Dissemination

• 4th November 2025: presentation to Northamptonshire County Council RAIN project team (funded under Defra flood resilience grant)
• 21st November 2025: presentation to water company SuDS knowledge sharing group (organised by Southern Water)

Project programme: February 2025 – April 2026

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Key progress points (May - November 2025)

• 3 x regional co-creation workshops on 23rd, 29th and 30th May (60 attendees)
• 3 x regional review workshops on 11th, 12th, 13th November (50 attendees)
• SuDS-iQ app creation functionality development including:
  • A user-friendly project creation workflow to guide users through the SuDS planning and conceptual design process.
  • Architecture to allow test users to provide feedback throughout.
  • A “geoplan" to provide user-friendly access to the model (with georeferencing, auto surface definition, user-click subcatchment drawings, import/expert of GIS data files)
  • Integration and upgrade of existing model
  • Collation of relevant publicly accessible data libraries (e.g. national soil types)
  • Specification and design of results page
• Release of alpha-version of the SuDS-iQ app for user test and trialling

Dissemination

• June 25 : Panel discussion with Ofwat at the European Wastewater Management Conference
• June 25: Contributing to the Ofwat Innovation Fund Nature first learning report
• July 25: Speaking at the CIWEM webinar: ‘SuDS tools – what’s around the corner’.
• October 25: Speaking at the Landscape Institute regeneration conference on Innovations in SuDS
   

A project start up meeting was held in February 2025 and as such HR Wallingford and CIWEM have undertaken some tasks associated with Phase 1 Platform co-creation. These include:

• developing a living Impact & Engagement Plan;
• engaging with water company partners to help establish the regional collaboration groups;
• develop and promote an online survey to obtain input on existing and future SuDS collaboration requirements (which to date has 120 responses);
• co-creation workshops to explore the survey findings in more detail and obtain feedback on direction of travel have been planned for mid to late May.

HR Wallingford has also started producing design documents in preparation for the upcoming co-creation workshops where input from future users of SuDS-iQ will be gathered. These documents include user-stories, mock-ups, workflows and specifications and will help explain the SuDS-iQ concepts and ideas in a visual way.

Currently at the project set-up stage. Prior to contract agreement and project start-up, HR Wallingford have undertaken a number of early preparatory activities:

• Development of the SuDS-iQ logo (June 2024)
• Development of dissemination flyers for distribution at the CIWEM Flood & Coast conference 2024 (June 2024)
• Initial draft of the SuDS-iQ Impact & Engagement Plan (September 2024)
• Initial draft of the SuDS-iQ Technical Scoping Document (September 2024)
• Industry survey on SuDS research needs (September 2024)

Southern Water has been working on the collaboration agreement, writing the baseline report and organising the kick-off meeting.