Sponge city strategies are gaining momentum in the UK as Ciwem’s recent Sponge Cities briefing note calls for widespread deployment of nature-based, water-retentive urban design. The concept centres on retrofitting streets, roofs and public spaces with permeable pavements, rain gardens, swales and green roofs to attenuate stormwater, reduce combined sewer overflows and manage surface water flooding. For civil and geotechnical engineers, this signals growing demand for SuDS-led masterplanning, hydraulic modelling of blue–green corridors and revised pavement and subgrade specifications to accommodate higher infiltration and storage.

Stormwater engineer David Schofield argues that large-scale managed aquifer recharge (MAR) using infiltration basins and recharge wells could simultaneously reduce UK surface-water flood peaks and bolster drought resilience. He points to schemes where storm flows are diverted from combined sewers into gravel-filled soakaways and deep injection wells, storing millions of cubic metres in permeable chalk and sandstone rather than building ever-larger attenuation tanks. For geotechnical and civil designers, MAR shifts focus towards subsurface storage capacity, soil permeability, groundwater mounding, and long-term water quality monitoring.

Anglo American is deploying environmental DNA (eDNA) sampling across its Bowen Basin coal operations, including Capcoal, to verify fauna using rehabilitated waste dumps and tailings areas. Environment teams collect air, water and soil samples to detect species such as microbats, small mammals and birds moving through reshaped and revegetated landforms, complementing traditional trapping and camera surveys. The approach gives mine planners finer-grained data on habitat use and succession, informing design of final landforms, drainage lines and vegetation communities for progressive rehabilitation sign-off.