Stunning panorama view over Thames river, the Shard, the London skyline and cityscape from the skyscraper. Aerial photo over the big city.
London, United Kingdom - May 24, 2023: A vessel that cleans the water floats along the Thames River.
Thames barrier at dusk,London
London rooftop view panorama at sunset with urban architectures and Thames River.
LONDON, UK - SPTEMBER 24 2019: Heavy traffic and flood in the background of Tower Bridge - Splash by car as it goes through flood water after heavy rains
Dartford Crossing, a twin roadway over the Thames, made up of the Dartford Tunnel the Queen Elizabeth II Bridge
London, UK - June 22, 2018: Cityscape of Thames River construction for clean-up, many cranes at ship port, wharf, skyline of skyscrapers, bridges
London, UK - 12.27.2020: A panoramic view of London across River Thames shows the City, Tower Bridge, Shard and Thames Tideway Tunnel gantry
- The Thames Tideway Tunnel runs for 25 kilometers beneath the surface of London
- The tunnel collects wastewater from 34 of the city's most polluted sewage outfalls
- Downstream, the waters are treated at the largest plant in Europe
- Each year, the Thames overflows an average of 50 times due to heavy rains
- In Washington D.C., Webuild took part in the construction of a tunnel that collects wastewater, preventing it from being discharged into the Anacostia River.
Eight years have passed since the beginning of the works, and the massive tunnel running beneath the surface of London s complete. Along its 25 kilometers, which cross the English capital, the wastewater from 34 of the city’s most polluted sewage outlets will flow, to be treated at a facility downstream from the tunnel before being reintroduced into the Thames. This massive hydraulic project, costing 5 billion pounds (6 billion euros), is called The Thames Tideway Tunnel and is a strategic infrastructure for London, similar to projects carried out in other major cities like Washington D.C., where the Webuild Group, in consortium with other operators, participated in the construction of a tunnel system designed for the treatment of sewage and stormwater, thereby reducing pollution in the city’s rivers.
The new hydraulic tunnel in London represents the largest infrastructural intervention in the city’s wastewater management network since its construction in the 1860s. “This is the moment we have been waiting for a long time,” Andy Mitchell, CEO of Thames Tideway, the company that managed the construction of the tunnel, told BBC News. “From now on, we will be able to capture and treat most of the dirty water currently discharged into the Thames, which means a cleaner river.”
The Invisible Tunnel in Central London
The Thames Tideway Tunnel will become operational this summer and will be fully operational by 2025. The tunnel, which has a diameter of 7.2 meters, starts from Acton in the west of London and reaches Abbey Mills in the east. In addition to transporting wastewater, this infrastructure also has the task of collecting rainwater during periods of heavy rain. The tunnel has been designed to accommodate an amount of water equivalent to that contained in 600 Olympic swimming pools up to Beckton, in the eastern part of London, where the largest wastewater treatment plant in Europe is located.
Water Infrastructure Will Transform the Cities of the Future
Today’s London is very different from that of 1865 when the first city sewer network was built. At that time, the English capital had 2 million inhabitants compared to the current 9 million. Since then, the climate has also changed significantly, with the intensification of extreme phenomena such as torrential rains that flood the city. According to Thames Water, the British company responsible for managing the river, the Thames overflows on average 50 times a year, unable to handle the enormous volumes of rainwater. Hence the importance of a project like the Thames Tideway Tunnel, which draws inspiration from other infrastructural interventions carried out in many world capitals, aimed at managing rainwater and treating wastewater.
The Clean River Project in Washington D.C. follows this philosophy by constructing a network of underground tunnels to divert and then treat wastewater and sewage before they are reintroduced into the major rivers of the U.S. capital. One of the tunnels built is the NEBT (Northeast Boundary Tunnel), constructed in a joint venture by the Webuild Group, an 8.2-kilometer-long hydraulic tunnel that reduces by 98% the volume of untreated water and wastewater discharged into the Anacostia River, one of the major tributaries of the Potomac.
In Argentina, in Buenos Aires,, Webuild participated in the construction of the so-called “Riachuelo System,” a project that involved the construction of a treatment plant and a comprehensive network of tunnels to divert and treat the wastewater of the Riachuelo, one of the most polluted rivers in South America. Specifically, the discharge tunnel built by the Webuild Group is capable of handling 2.3 million cubic meters of sewage daily.
From London to Washington D.C. to Buenos Aires, large projects for the management of wastewater and rainwater are becoming increasingly essential for environmental protection and the rehabilitation of major cities.
