The DWMP blog – Episode 20. Methodology for Cycle 2

This is the latest in a series of blogs discussing the development of Drainage and Wastewater Management Plans (DWMPs).?If you haven’t already seen the earlier episodes in this series, they are all here (https://tinyurl.com/MartinOsborneArticles) I suggest that you start from Episode 1 (https://tinyurl.com/DWMP-blog).

This will be the last episode for a while and in it I bring together all of the strands to suggest what the guidance should be for the second cycle of DWMPs, which will start even before the first cycle is finalised and published.

The published guidance

In 2019, shortly after the publication of the DWMP guidance and before actually working on any of them, I did a paper that represented the proposed DWMP process as a simplified flow chart.

Representation of the published DWMP process

First attempt

I then proposed some changes to improve and streamline the process and I set out that this was definitely how DWMPs should be done.

I was, of course, wrong.?The changes needed to be more radical.

Second attempt

In January 2022 I suggested further changes and shared them with colleagues.

A week later, I realised that it was, of course, wrong.

This attempt

I therefore started this series of blogs with the hope of receiving helpful criticism of my ideas.?Unfortunately, the only responses that I got were favourable, so I had to rely on using the process of writing to put forward arguments against my own ideas to see if I could justify them.

So, at the end of this process, I have honed my ideas for a proposed approach to future DWMPs.?It is, of course, wrong, but I think that it is useful.?The approach is shown in the following two diagrams.?

In the first diagram, the first two rows are carried out at company level to set the overall context for the DWMPs.?The remaining steps are carried out for each catchment or group of catchments.

The second diagram shows the sub-process for each of the scenarios in option development.

Proposed DWMP process

Sub-process for each scenario

I am working on writing details of how to carry out each of the steps in the proposed process, but you can find most of it in this series of blogs.?Please challenge my proposed methodology.?As I say, I know that it is wrong, I just don’t know where.

Break

I am going to take a break from these blogs for a while to catch up on other things, but I will return to them to comment on the first cycle DWMPs when they are published and in future whenever I have something interesting or useful to say on the wider topic of how to plan drainage and wastewater systems.?Comments welcome at all times.