flood protection

Understanding Flood Protection with Geodesign Barriers

Flood protection is a crucial defense against the unpredictable challenges posed by climate change, safeguarding communities, assets, and natural ecosystems. As we grapple with increasingly frequent and severe flooding events, the need for reliable and adaptive flood protection solutions intensifies. With Geodesign Barriers, you're opting for a secure and proven solution, backed by over 30 years of industry experience.

Heavy Duty – Cover image Water

ProvenExpertise in Modern Flood Defense

At Geodesign Barriers, we rise to meet this challenge head-on. Pioneering the frontier of flood protection, our temporary, demountable flood barriers are the embodiment of innovation and efficiency. Designed for swift deployment and maximum durability, our barriers are tailor-made for diverse settings, including urban areas, vital infrastructure points, utility companies, and private homes.

Flood protection is a vast domain, spanning from large-scale structural measures like dams to policy-driven initiatives such as land-use planning. What sets Geodesign Barriers apart is our unique blend of robust traditional protection and the adaptability of contemporary solutions.

As you explore the intricacies of flood protection, remember that Geodesign Barriers is not just a solution provider; we are your steadfast partner, dedicated to forging a safer, more resilient tomorrow.

Take the first step to flood protection - contact us now

Urban areas

Urban Areas: Tailored Flood Protection Solutions

Urban environments represent a confluence of dense infrastructures, intricate roadways, and limited expanses of open land. Such complexities amplify the need for effective flood protection methods that can seamlessly integrate with the city landscape.

Geodesign Barriers offers an engineering-focused approach tailored to meet these urban demands:

  1. Minimal Ground Work Required: Urban terrains are often replete with underground utilities, cables, and pipelines. Our barriers are purposefully designed to be installed with little to no groundwork, ensuring that existing infrastructures remain undisturbed while still affording effective flood protection.
  2. Adaptability to Diverse Settings: Given the varied terrain and structures in urban areas, it's essential for flood barriers to be versatile. Geodesign Barriers are engineered to conform to uneven surfaces and navigate around urban obstacles, ensuring a seamless protective shield against floodwaters.
  3. Swift Deployment in Constrained Spaces: Urban scenarios often necessitate rapid response in confined spaces. Our barriers cater to this need, allowing for quick and efficient setup even in the tightest city environments.
  4. Compact Storage: In cities where space is at a premium, our barriers stand out for their storage efficiency. They are designed for compact storage, ensuring that they don't occupy significant space when not in use.
  5. Integration with Urban Infrastructure: Beyond just serving as a barrier against floods, our solutions are designed to integrate seamlessly with existing urban infrastructures, such as building exteriors or public utilities, to provide a holistic and unobtrusive flood protection mechanism.

Within the dynamic context of urban landscapes, where rapid adaptability and efficiency are paramount, Geodesign Barriers provides a tailored engineering solution. Our commitment is to reinforce the resilience of urban centers, ensuring that they remain vibrant and operational, irrespective of flooding challenges.

Utility Companies

Utility Companies: Specialized Flood Protection Strategies

Utility facilities, especially power stations, embody the nexus of critical infrastructure, technological complexity, and operational continuity. One of the paramount challenges they face is the implementation of flood protection measures to safeguard electrical equipment, substations, and critical nodes from water ingress. Additionally, the presence of in-ground cables and often rugged terrain complicates the implementation of many traditional flood protection measures.

Geodesign Barriers provides an engineering solution tailored to address these specific challenges:

  1. Minimal Ground Work Required: Recognizing that power stations are laced with underground cables and utilities, our barriers are designed to be deployed with minimal to no groundwork. This not only ensures the integrity of underground infrastructure but also expedites the installation process.
  2. Adaptable to Uneven Terrains: Power stations are often located in regions with challenging topography. Our barriers excel in such conditions, having been engineered to adapt to uneven ground, ensuring consistent and reliable flood protection.
  3. Swift Deployment: Time-sensitive scenarios, especially in utility contexts, necessitate rapid response measures. Geodesign Barriers are designed for quick and efficient deployment, ensuring that facilities remain operational and risks are minimized during imminent flood threats.
  4. Safety and Compliance: Beyond just preventing water ingress, our barriers are aligned with the safety standards demanded by the utility sector. By offering a robust defense against flooding, they aid utility companies in adhering to regulatory guidelines and ensuring the safety of their staff and infrastructure.
  5. Durability and Efficiency: With the combination of design precision and high-quality materials, our barriers ensure long-term resilience against potential flood events, providing utility companies with a durable solution that requires minimal maintenance.

In the realm of utility operations, where continuity is paramount and challenges are multifaceted, Geodesign Barriers stands as a proven engineering solution. Our commitment is to bolster the resilience of utility companies, ensuring that they can deliver essential services unhindered, even in the face of rising flood risks.

Vital infrastructure

Vital Infrastructure: Advanced Flood Protection Measures

Vital infrastructure points are integral to a nation's transport and communication systems and require dependable flood protection strategies. These assets, due to their inherent nature and design, face distinctive challenges when confronted with flooding, particularly from the immediate threat of water ingress.

Geodesign Barriers have been engineered with precision to address these specific challenges:

  1. Adaptability to Complex Forms: Railway tracks, with their intricate structure and uneven profile, present a formidable challenge for most flood barriers. Our barriers, with their poly membrane, are adept at creating a watertight seal even around such challenging forms, ensuring that tracks remain dry and operational.
  2. Customizable Lengths for Precision Fit: Infrastructure like bridges often lies between two fixed points, requiring a flood solution that can fit precisely within a given span. Geodesign Barriers come with adjustable elements, allowing for a tailor-made barrier length that can snugly fit between walls or other structures, effectively sealing off critical points like bridges.
  3. Immediate Response to Water Threat: Given the rapid onset of some flood events, swift deployment is crucial. Geodesign Barriers are designed for rapid setup, allowing for timely protection of vital infrastructure against imminent flood threats.
  4. Durability and Resilience: These barriers are constructed using high-quality materials, ensuring they stand firm against the aggressive force of floodwaters, safeguarding the infrastructure they surround.
  5. Minimal Interference with Infrastructure Function: A key concern with flood protection around vital infrastructure is ensuring that the protective measures do not impede the normal function of the asset. Geodesign Barriers are designed to offer robust flood protection while allowing the infrastructure – be it a road, bridge, or railway – to continue its essential role.

In the domain of vital infrastructure protection, where the stakes are high and margins for error are slim, Geodesign Barriers emerges as an engineering-centric solution. Our commitment is underlined by a singular goal: to fortify and shield our critical infrastructure, ensuring uninterrupted function even in the face of challenging flood scenarios.

Private homes

Flood Protection for Private Homes

The sanctity of a private home extends beyond its walls; it's a haven, a space of comfort and security. With the increasing unpredictability of climatic events, implementing effective flood protection for private homes has emerged as a priority. Addressing the distinctive challenges that residential settings pose requires a solution both robust and tailored. Enter Geodesign Barriers.

  1. Intuitive Design and Setup: Drawing comparisons to the simplicity of IKEA and the versatility of Meccano, Geodesign Barriers present homeowners with a flood protection solution that doesn't demand expert intervention. Homeowners can set it up with ease, ensuring rapid response in the face of imminent flood threats.
  2. Low Maintenance Requirements: In a residential context, prolonged and complex maintenance routines are less than ideal. Geodesign Barriers stand out with their minimal maintenance needs. Simple cleaning with water, followed by drying, suffices—ensuring longevity without burdening homeowners.
  3. Durable and Long-lasting: Unlike plastic alternatives which tend to degrade over time, Geodesign Barriers are built for longevity. They offer homeowners a dependable shield against floods, a testament to their engineering resilience that far outlives other materials.
  4. Versatile Perimeter Construction: Every home is unique, and so is its layout. Geodesign Barriers, equipped with specially designed corner elements, provide unmatched versatility. Whether it's navigating the bends of a garden path or contouring a patio, these barriers adapt, creating watertight perimeters in virtually any shape.
  5. Accessible Even When Deployed: In the throes of a flood event, access to and from one's home remains paramount. Unique to Geodesign Barriers is the provision of a specialized ladder, ensuring homeowners can comfortably cross over the barrier when required—a feature not universally available in flood protection solutions.
  6. Compact Storage: Space is often at a premium in residential settings. Catering to this, Geodesign Barriers have been designed with a low storage volume, allowing homeowners to conveniently stow them away in spaces as compact as a garage when not in use.

In the intricate landscape of residential flood protection, Geodesign Barriers rise as an epitome of engineering precision and user-centric design. For homeowners seeking a blend of reliability, adaptability, and longevity, these barriers serve as an unparalleled shield, ensuring that the home remains undisturbed and protected, come what may.

Airports

Ensuring Uninterrupted Operations: Geodesign Barriers for Airport Flood Protection

Airports stand as critical hubs of transportation and logistics, necessitating robust flood protection strategies. Their expansive grounds, intricate underground systems, and continuous operational demands create a unique set of challenges when mitigating flood risks. In this context, Geodesign Barriers offer a sophisticated and efficient solution, tailored to the distinct requirements of airport environments. They ensure uninterrupted functionality and safety, even in the face of potential inundation.

  1. Swift and Extensible Deployment: Airports encompass large areas that necessitate quick and extensive flood defense measures. Geodesign Barriers can be swiftly erected over large perimeters such as airstrips and aprons, providing prompt and extensive flood defense.
  2. Non-Invasive Installation: Airports are complex networks of subterranean systems including fuel conduits, electrical cables, and baggage transport mechanisms. The setup of Geodesign Barriers involves negligible to zero excavation, ensuring these vital subterranean systems are preserved.
  3. Flexible Terrain Adaptation: The diverse topography of airports, ranging from leveled runways to irregular service alleys, demands adaptable flood protection. Geodesign Barriers are engineered to adjust to varying ground conditions, ensuring effective inundation prevention across the airport's varied landscape.
  4. Safeguarding Essential Systems: Geodesign Barriers can be strategically positioned to secure critical airport zones such as air traffic control systems, radar towers, and power substations, shielding them from water encroachment.
  5. Minimal Impact on Operations: Considering the uninterrupted flux of travelers and freight, it's imperative that flood defenses impose minimal operational hindrances. Geodesign Barriers can be set up rapidly and effectively, facilitating ongoing airport functions even during installation.
  6. Safety and Regulatory Adherence: These barriers are crafted to conform to stringent safety and environmental protocols, in line with the rigorous regulations that airports are bound to.
  7. Space-Economical Storage: When not active, Geodesign Barriers provide space-saving storage solutions, a critical aspect for spatially limited airport environments.
  8. Endurance and Reliability: Built with superior materials, these barriers offer enduring protection, capable of resisting the vigor of floodwaters and preserving airport assets from harm.

In essence, Geodesign Flood Barriers present an encompassing solution for airport flood defense, merging swift deployment, minimal operational interruption, flexible terrain compatibility, and adherence to safety standards, all while protecting indispensable airport infrastructure.

Harbour

Harbor Resilience: Tailoring Flood Protection with Geodesign Barriers

Harbors, by their nature, present a complex tapestry of challenges when it comes to flood protection. They are dynamic spaces where land meets the sea, often bracing for high-impact events like storm surges. The Geodesign Barriers offer an innovative solution finely attuned to the unique demands of harbor areas:

  1. Heavy-Duty Resilience: Designed for the toughest conditions, Geodesign Barriers are robust systems capable of being anchored down to withstand the ferocity of storm surges and other intense maritime conditions. Their durability ensures that they can reliably handle the extreme forces encountered in harbor areas.
  2. Adaptive Configuration: Understanding that maritime activity is the lifeblood of harbor areas, these barriers are designed for versatile deployment. They can be arranged in almost any shape, seamlessly integrating into the harbor's layout without disrupting ongoing activities. This adaptability ensures that the barriers can provide effective flood protection while maintaining the fluidity of maritime operations.
  3. Environmental Sensitivity: Post-event, the removal of Geodesign Barriers leaves minimal environmental footprint, underscoring their design philosophy that harmonizes flood defense with ecological considerations. This feature is especially crucial in harbor areas, where the balance between infrastructure and natural habitats is delicate.
  4. Integration with Harbor Infrastructure: With specially designed modules, Geodesign Barriers can smoothly connect to existing walls and other facilities within the harbor. This seamless integration ensures that the barriers not only provide robust protection but also become a cohesive part of the harbor's infrastructure, ready to be deployed when needed.
  5. Ease of Maintenance and Longevity: Maintenance is a critical aspect of any flood protection system, especially in the rigorous conditions of harbor areas. Geodesign Barriers shine in this aspect with their easy-to-maintain design and extended lifespan. The simplicity of their deployment ensures that they will be readily used, offering long-term reliability and effectiveness.

In the intricate and demanding environment of harbor areas, Geodesign Barriers stand as a testament to engineering innovation, offering a flood protection solution that is as resilient as it is adaptable. Their commitment to safeguarding these crucial areas ensures that harbors can continue their vital role, shielded from the threats of flooding.

No matter the specific needs of your location, it's important to select the appropriate temporary flood protection product to ensure effective and efficient flood control. With the right tools and strategies in place, we can work together to mitigate the risks of flooding and protect our communities.

Shropshire star

"The rule book has been changed forever. The old consensus that nothing can be done has been replaced by a knowledge that something can be done. The barriers were a great success."

- Shropshire Star, UK

Fraser council

”On behalf of our Council and community, I would like to congratulate your company on an outstanding product.”

- Ken Diehm, Chief Executive Officer @ Fraser Coast Regional Council, AUS

The Five Pillars of Comprehensive Flood Protection:Ensure You're READY!

In the face of nature's often unforeseen wrath, a holistic approach to flood protection is more than just a choice—it's a necessity. The intricate balance between vigilance, preparedness, and rapid response determines success in safeguarding our sites and communities. At Geodesign, our barriers aren't just products; they're the culmination of years of experience, learning, and innovation. Over the years, we've not only developed state-of-the-art barrier systems but also honed a comprehensive strategy to combat floods. Each component, from risk monitoring to yearly training, plays a pivotal role in ensuring maximum protection. As you explore our READY checklist, you'll grasp our unwavering commitment and the breadth of our expertise, all channeled towards one primary goal: safeguarding you and your assets from the unpredictable whims of nature.

R - Risk Monitoring for Flood Protection:

Every organization, whether a company or council, should have a designated individual or team specifically for flood risk monitoring. Leveraging a robust system to stay updated with flood alerts is paramount. Many weather agencies and councils offer specialized channels for flood risk notifications. It's crucial to identify the most dependable channel tailored to your needs and ensure regular monitoring by dedicated personnel.

E - Establishing a Robust Flood Protection Plan:

Before diving into the world of mobile flood protection systems, drafting a detailed flood protection plan tailored to your site is a must. Such a plan not only facilitates the swift deployment of flood barriers but also guarantees that every pivotal detail is in place, overseen by competent individuals.

A - Alert Mechanisms in Flood Protection:

The essence of flood protection lies in timely alerts. Whether it's an impending flood or one that's already begun, rapid alert dispatch to the barrier deployment team is crucial. These alerts, whether automated, relayed through phone calls, or a combination of methods, must instigate immediate barrier setup.

D - Deployment and Vigilant Monitoring for Effective Flood Protection:

Once alerted, it's a race against time. Rally your team to set up the temporary flood protection barriers, adhering to the most recent guidelines. Having a previously established flood protection plan and a well-prepped team ensures efficient deployment. Barriers should ideally be fully functional within hours after an alert. For swift setup, storing these flood protection barriers close to the site is advised. Continuous vigilance during flooding is essential, with on-site personnel ready to address challenges such as seepage. Post-flooding, it's essential to clean barriers following maintenance protocols and return the site to its original state.

Y - Yearly Training and Review for Optimal Flood Protection:

Maintaining a well-trained team and ensuring your flood protection assets remain contemporary is vital. Regular yearly training keeps the team abreast of the latest flood protection strategies. Evaluations post-flood incidents are integral for refining and strengthening future flood protection measures.

In the realm of flood protection, possessing advanced equipment is only part of the equation. A holistic strategy, coupled with awareness and readiness, determines the effectiveness of your flood protection measures. Ensure you're READY!

Find out how we can ensure you're READY

Differentsituationswheremobile flood protection is used

Redirect flowing water in flash floods

A flash flood occurs when runoff from excessive rainfall causes a rapid rise in the water in normally-dry channels, like a street. Flash floods are more common in areas with a dry climate and rocky terrain because lack of soil or vegetation allows torrential rains to flow overland rather than infiltrate into the ground. When flash floods strike, mobile flood protection systems can be deployed to redirect the water flow away from critical areas such as residential properties and towards designated areas where water can be collected without negative consequences. This approach can prevent or mitigate the damaging effects of flash floods and reduce the risk of loss of life and property. 

Hold high levels of water as rivers overflow

River flooding are quite common and a natural cause as excessive runoff from longer-lasting rainstorms or melting snow causes a water-level rise over a larger area. These areas around rivers that often flood are called floodplain areas and historically they have been flooded continuously. As modern civilisation started building on floodplain areas, issues with flooded homes and infrastructures had to be dealt with. Temporary flood barriers may be of good use in these areas and can act as a river enhancer for the few days or week that the river level is high above normal levels.

Withstand coastal floods as sea level rises

Coastal areas often bear the brunt of severe storms, especially if these have gathered pace over the oceans. Extreme weather and high tides can cause a rise in sea levels, sometimes resulting in coastal flooding. Low-lying seaside areas are especially exposed and as global warming develops, coastal flooding is expected to be a recurring and increasingly severe problem. In coastal floods there is a need for a more robust mobile flood system that can handle waves and wind. Most of the serious certifications organs on the flood market such as FM Global BSI Kitemark test the flood barriers for high waves and strong current.

Protecting specific properties in groundwater floods

Groundwater flooding takes time to occur and is an effect of saturated grounds that no longer can absorb water. When this happens, water rises above the ground’s surface and causes flooding. This type of flooding can last for weeks and in these types of floods houses and other properties can be surrounded by mobile flood protection and then pumping out the water outside the flood barrier.

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