His designs, influenced by English social reformer and public health inspector Edwin Chadwick,[6] included the first underground sewers in continental Europe.

Within three years 11 km of sewers had been built in Hamburg,[7] and Lindley began work on a waterworks to supply the city with drinking water.

In the following years he helped design and build water systems in a number of other German cities and towns such as Altona, Stralsund[8] and Leipzig.

This drainage system, which was implemented by the construction of a grid of canals connected by locks with the Elbe river (1842–47), provided the basis of the first modern suburb at Hamburg, primarily as an industrial area.

In 1863, he began work on the sewerage system of Frankfurt am Main, the benefits of which became apparent as between 1868 and 1883 the death rate from typhoid fell from 80 to 10 per 100,000 inhabitants.