Sustainable Development in the UK and the Netherlands Essay

Sustainable Development in the UK and the Netherlands - Essay Example Netherlands have extracted and prioritised the demographic factor about world population, a knowledge based economy, energy consumption and mobility, sustainable water consumption and biodiversity functioning in the earth's ecological balance (NSDO, Feb 2002) It is just because of the workings of well-known sources of market failure, that the economy is left to its own devices for 'under supply' or ignoring the environmental goods and services that make up sustainable development, such as clean air and water, parks, wilderness habitats, water levels, and plant diversity (Scott et al, 1995, p. 4). The area I have chosen for analysing sustainability is the water management. UK realises the way we survive today i.e., we drink and breathe a carbon constrained and water constrained world. This is the reason for why UK has recently proposed the Eco-towns Prospectus that requires sustainable water development as a whole should reach zero-carbon standards. The Future Water Strategy as set in March 2008 for England plans the decisions of UK Government to set for water in the future and the practical steps that will need to be taken to ensure that clean water is available for the people to drink. The current plan of 2008 looks forward towards 2030 in order to examine the water cycle that have a profound effect, from rainfall and drainage procedures to discharge and treatment (TCPA, 2008a). Flood Risk: New development is going on in terms of managing flood risk in which sequential testing method is planned to be applied. In this case "Planning Policy Statement" is applicable and requires development away from the area that is subjected to highest flood risk. Therefore technical assessment is necessary in context with FRA (Flood Risk Assessment), where assessment easily identifies the main factors behind potential risks involved with the surface water drainage and sewer flooding, therefore the development should fulfill all the requirements for a sustainable master plan. UK now being aware of the possible threats of floods have managed eco-towns to clearly demonstrate innovative approaches so as to minimise the loss of flood risk while taking into account all those longer-term impacts of climate change that somehow directly or indirectly influences the lifetime development of water management. This has provided the UK water management some options like identifying the possible opportunities to reserve enough space for water usage while strategically locating green space for flood storage in times of flood, using conveyance and Sustainable Drainage Systems and recreating functional flood plains. This way the various flood zones work in accordance with the communities to improve their performance and vigilance so that in circumstances where exceptional flood occur, an eco-town suffers the least impact. Sustainable Drainage Outcomes (SUDS): A new technique incorporated by eco-towns is the SUDS that incorporate viable and cost-effective solutions by avoiding or reducing the need for hard engineering solutions. In order to avoid the threat of eco-towns exploitation, various planning authorities work in collaboration with planning and legal agreements to secure the implementation of SUDS. The SUDS