Foresight Flood and Coastal Defence Project

responses to discussion paper

Following publication of the paper scoping the seminar Foresight Flood and Coastal Defence Project: Proposed Approach we have received suggestions for how the project could be developed from delegates at the scoping seminar held on 27 June 2002 and responses from the website. The suggestions for how the project should be developed are outlined below.

The majority of respondents agreed that the project should be in two main parts:

Flooding scenarios:

These would identify changes in the future severity and frequency of flooding due to climate change and socio-economic changes, and assess the resulting cost. The aim would be to identify the size of the future problem, and to identify where the threats will be focused.

Responses to flood risk:

Analyse and compare different ways to respond to the future flood and coastal defence problem identified above.

Part 1: Flooding scenarios

The flooding scenarios should be based on the United Kingdom Climate Change Programme 2002 scenarios (UKCIP02) which would be extrapolated from 2080 to 2100 and translated into flood risk

The project should look at:

• Pluvial flooding
• River based flooding (fluvial flooding)
• Sea based flooding (coastal flooding including the effects of sea level rise and storm surges)
• Interaction of rain, rivers and sea (estuarine flooding)
• The probability of events occurring at the same time (such as a sustained period of rain followed by a heavy storm) and their impacts
• Natural variations in the climate as well as atmospheric oscillations (e.g. North Atlantic Oscillation/El Nino etc

Impacts of flooding should be measured holistically using the three main pillars of sustainable development:

• social (including health)
• economic
• environment

Critical assets at risk from future flooding should be investigated as a special study focusing on areas such as

• coastal assets (e.g. power stations/refineries)
• inland assets (e.g. transport infrastructure/emergency services)

Extreme Events such as:

• Tsunamis
• Hurricanes
• Asteroid, meteor or comet strike
• North Atlantic ocean circulation changing

Part 2: Responses to flood risk

responses to flood risk can be broken down into three main areas:

Engineering responses

• Hard engineering
• Technology (engineering and science - existing and future technology)

Soft responses such as

• Environmental schemes to manage flood risk, how these link to EC Directives to protect, sustain or enhance the natural environment Europe-wide
• Geomorphological engineering to repair natural systems to minimise flood risk.
• Land use and how this impacts on flooding (e.g. urban and rural drainage) as well as controlling water at source.

Reducing impact/damage

• Temporary and Demountable flood defences
• Building solutions such as flood proofing houses, raising roads etc
• Using the planning system to prevent building in inappropriate areas
• Insurance and market forces
• Phased relocation and managed realignment.

Case studies on small areas throughout UK should also be undertaken to look at flood risk, potential impact and suitable responses.

Other areas that have been identified as important for the project are:

Communication

• Who to communicate with (e.g. those at risk, those not at risk)
• What to communicate, how to communicate it and when (e.g. before or after a flood)
• Language used by different people (e.g. flood professionals, politicians, etc)

International

• There are good (and bad) flood management practices throughout the world. The project should investigate these and see if there are any lessons that could be learnt
• It will be considered whether the project might organise or take part in an international forum or discussion group

Skills and research

• Skill shortages should be considered by the project and how these can be addressed
• Areas for further research should be identified

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