A HydroSack or a HydroSnake is a brand name for a flood control sandbag alternative made by Gravitas International of Cheshire, North West England. [1] They are very lightweight and thin until they come into contact with water, then they begin to retain water until they have reached capacity. The devices then resist any further water excess. These can be used to absorb, resist and redirect flowing water.
The HydroSack and the HydroSnake are made up of an outer fabric consisting of non-woven polypropylene with a hydrophilic finish. The internal pads are composed of pads containing wood pulp and a superabsorbent polymer (SAP). In this form, the HydroSack or HydroSnake weighs 0.5 kilograms (1.1 lb). The HydroSack measures 60 by 48 centimetres (24 by 19 in) and the HydroSnake measures 20 by 120 centimetres (7.9 by 47.2 in). When a HydroSack or a HydroSnake comes into contact with water, the SAP crystallizes and absorbs the water. [2] HydroSacks take approximately 2-3 minutes to reach full capacity. The HydroSack and the HydroSnake are very absorbent. [1] Full capacity is between 15–20 litres (4.0–5.3 US gal) of water. It retains this weight for up to six months. HydroSacks can be stacked together to form a strong ballast. It is used as a form of flood control and can be used to minimize the damage that flooding can cause. [3] The HydroSack has a three-section structure with handles. [1] When a HydroSack is no longer needed, the insides can be emptied into the earth after use, without any harmful effects.
HydroSacks and HydroSnakes are new innovations to replace sandbags for their multiple purposes, from road ballast signs to flood protection. Globally, other companies are making products similar to the HydroSack, such as UK-based FloodSax which have sold more than 2.5 million of their alternative sandbags worldwide and Thailand based Nanotec. [4] Fife council in the United Kingdom recently integrated the HydroSack into their first response flood protection. [5] In June 2013, some residents of Rosyth criticized the distribution of HydroSacks for flood control complaining that they were a single-use, disposable product. The Fife Council confirmed this, but added they would last for two or three months once filled with water. [2]
A levee, dike, dyke, embankment, floodbank, or stop bank is a structure that is usually earthen and that often runs parallel to the course of a river in its floodplain or along low-lying coastlines.
Fife is a council area, historic county, registration county and lieutenancy area of Scotland. It is situated between the Firth of Tay and the Firth of Forth, with inland boundaries with Perth and Kinross and Clackmannanshire. By custom it is widely held to have been one of the major Pictish kingdoms, known as Fib, and is still commonly known as the Kingdom of Fife within Scotland. A person from Fife is known as a Fifer. In older documents the county was very occasionally known by the anglicisation Fifeshire.
Dunfermline is a city, parish and former Royal Burgh, in Fife, Scotland, on high ground 3 miles (5 km) from the northern shore of the Firth of Forth. The city currently has an estimated population of 58,508. According to the National Records of Scotland, the Greater Dunfermline area has a population of 76,210.
Hydroelectricity, or hydroelectric power, is electricity generated from hydropower. Hydropower supplies one sixth of the world's electricity, almost 4500 TWh in 2020, which is more than all other renewable sources combined and also more than nuclear power. Hydropower can provide large amounts of low-carbon electricity on demand, making it a key element for creating secure and clean electricity supply systems. A hydroelectric power station that has a dam and reservoir is a flexible source, since the amount of electricity produced can be increased or decreased in seconds or minutes in response to varying electricity demand. Once a hydroelectric complex is constructed, it produces no direct waste, and almost always emits considerably less greenhouse gas than fossil fuel-powered energy plants. However, when constructed in lowland rainforest areas, where part of the forest is inundated, substantial amounts of greenhouse gases may be emitted.
Inverkeithing is a port town and parish, in Fife, Scotland, on the Firth of Forth. A town of ancient origin, Inverkeithing was given royal burgh status during the reign of Malcolm IV in the 12th century. It was an important center of trade during the Middle Ages, and its industrial heritage built on quarrying and ship breaking goes back to the 19th century. In 2016, the town had an estimated population of 4,890, while the civil parish was reported to have a population of 8,090 in 2011.
A sandbag or dirtbag is a bag or sack made of hessian (burlap), polypropylene or other sturdy materials that is filled with sand or soil and used for such purposes as flood control, military fortification in trenches and bunkers, shielding glass windows in war zones, ballast, counterweight, and in other applications requiring mobile fortification, such as adding improvised additional protection to armored vehicles or tanks.
Hessian, burlap in the United States and Canada, or crocus in Jamaica and the wider Caribbean, is a woven fabric usually made from skin of the jute plant or sisal fibres, which may be combined with other vegetable fibres to make rope, nets, and similar products. Gunny is similar in texture and construction.
A ballast tank is a compartment within a boat, ship or other floating structure that holds water, which is used as ballast to provide hydrostatic stability for a vessel, to reduce or control buoyancy, as in a submarine, to correct trim or list, to provide a more even load distribution along the hull to reduce structural hogging or sagging stresses, or to increase draft, as in a semi-submersible vessel or platform, or a SWATH, to improve seakeeping. Using water in a tank provides easier weight adjustment than the stone or iron ballast used in older vessels, and makes it easy for the crew to reduce a vessel's draft when it enters shallower water, by temporarily pumping out ballast. Airships use ballast tanks mainly to control buoyancy and correct trim.
The Wivenhoe Dam is a rock and earth-fill embankment dam with a concrete spillway across the Brisbane River in South East Queensland, Australia. The dam wall is located about 80 kilometres (50 mi) by road from the centre of Brisbane. The primary purpose of the dam is the supply of potable water for the Brisbane and Ipswich regions. The dam also provides for flood mitigation control, hydroelectricity, and recreation. The impounded reservoir is called Lake Wivenhoe and the dam, the lake and a narrow strip of surrounding land forms a locality also called Lake Wivenhoe.
Surface runoff is the flow of water occurring on the ground surface when excess rainwater, stormwater, meltwater, or other sources, can no longer sufficiently rapidly infiltrate in the soil. This can occur when the soil is saturated by water to its full capacity, and the rain arrives more quickly than the soil can absorb it. Surface runoff often occurs because impervious areas do not allow water to soak into the ground. Furthermore, runoff can occur either through natural or man-made processes. Surface runoff is a major component of the water cycle. It is the primary agent of soil erosion by water. The land area producing runoff that drains to a common point is called a drainage basin.
A stand-alone power system, also known as remote area power supply (RAPS), is an off-the-grid electricity system for locations that are not fitted with an electricity distribution system. Typical SAPS include one or more methods of electricity generation, energy storage, and regulation.
A superabsorbent polymer (SAP) is a water-absorbing hydrophilic homopolymers or copolymers that can absorb and retain extremely large amounts of a liquid relative to its own mass.
In environmental engineering, the flood mitigation involves the management and control of flood water movement, such as redirecting flood run-off through the use of floodwalls and flood gates, rather than trying to prevent floods altogether. It also involves the management of people, through measures such as evacuation and dry/wet proofing properties. The prevention and mitigation of flooding can be studied on three levels: on individual properties, small communities, and whole towns or cities. The costs of protection rise as more people and property are protected. The US FEMA, for example, estimates that for every $1.00 spent on mitigation, $4.00 is saved.
Duloch, or Duloch Park, is a residential suburb of Dunfermline, in Fife, Scotland.
A deep-cycle battery is a battery designed to be regularly deeply discharged using most of its capacity. The term is traditionally mainly used for lead–acid batteries in the same form factor as automotive batteries; and contrasted with starter or 'cranking' automotive batteries designed to deliver only a small part of their capacity in a short, high-current burst for cranking the engine.
Flood control methods are used to reduce or prevent the detrimental effects of flood waters. Flood relief methods are used to reduce the effects of flood waters or high water levels. Flooding can be caused by a mix of both natural processes, such as extreme weather upstream, and human changes to waterbodies and runoff. Though building hard infrastructure to prevent flooding, such as flood walls, can be effective at managing flooding, increased best practice within landscape engineering is to rely more on soft infrastructure and natural systems, such as marshes and flood plains, for handling the increase in water. For flooding on coasts, coastal management practices have to not only handle changes water flow, but also natural processes like tides.
A check dam is a small, sometimes temporary, dam constructed across a swale, drainage ditch, or waterway to counteract erosion by reducing water flow velocity. Check dams themselves are not a type of new technology; rather, they are an ancient technique dating from the second century A.D. Check dams are typically, though not always, implemented in a system of several dams situated at regular intervals across the area of interest.
Ballast water discharges by ships can have a negative impact on the marine environment. The discharge of ballast water and sediments by ships is governed globally under the Ballast Water Management Convention, since its entry into force in September 2017. It is also controlled through national regulations, which may be separate from the Convention, such as in the United States.
Water crystal gel or water beads or gel beads is any gel which absorbs and contains a large amount of water. Water gel is usually in spherical form and composed of a water-absorbing superabsorbent polymer such as a polyacrylamide.
The Dunfermline and Queensferry Railway was a railway company founded to form part of a rail and ferry route between Dunfermline and Edinburgh, in Scotland. It was authorised in 1873 and its promoters had obtained informal promises from the larger North British Railway that the NBR would provide financial help, and also operate the ferry and the necessary railway on the southern side of the Firth of Forth.