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Groundwater

During the feasibility stage of the Cardiff Bay Barrage project, concerns were raised about the possibility of groundwater levels rising in south Cardiff resulting in properties in the area being damaged.

As a result, a comprehensive Groundwater Protection Scheme was incorporated into the Cardiff Bay Barrage Act 1993 providing owners/occupiers with recourse should circumstances prove that groundwater damage ‘was caused or probably caused………[by] construction of the Barrage’, to remedial works or compensation.

The Act obliged Cardiff Bay Development Corporation, now Cardiff Harbour Authority to monitor groundwater levels for a period before (pre-impoundment) and after (post-impoundment) the construction of the Barrage, so that the impact of impoundment on groundwater levels could be determined. A monitoring system was established in 1995 to measure groundwater levels during both phases.

The possibility of groundwater rises in certain identified areas necessitated the installation, before impoundment, of various groundwater control systems to mitigate the effects of any groundwater rises.

Data collected from the monitoring and control systems are held in an extensive database used as a tool by Cardiff Harbour Authority to manage groundwater control and to provide information to independent experts when determining claims of possible groundwater damage to property.