Water in the Balance

Building a town where there was once fields poses a problem with water: What to do with it !

The Problem

When rain falls on fields, the water soaks into the ground. The earth acts like a sponge soaking it up. The water then trickles out slowly into the rivers.

If a rain falls on a town, the water runs into the drains and often immediately into the rivers, causing flash floods down stream.

The Answer: "Balancing Lakes"

Milton Keynes was built with houses, roads, parks and lakes. Known as "balancing lakes" by the town planners, the population accept them as big stretches of blue in the middle of the parks where you can go sailing and feed the ducks.

Don't be fooled into thinking they are pretty features just for the enjoyment of the population, they are vast machines to regulate the runoff from the town. The water that falls on the town is monitored and a huge paddle buried in the floor of the rivers beside each lake is raised to divert any excess water into the lakes. After the downpour, the paddles are slowly lowered at a rate that will not overload the river downstream.

This concept is taken further: Large areas of paddock and park land which don't normally have lakes, also have such water regulation equipment. In times of excessive rainfall, at the drop of a hat (or raising of a paddle), what was once disguised as place to have a picnic becomes, well, a place to feed the ducks, until it is eked away into the outside world.

mk@ontic.net