Flood defence strategy needs a radical rethink

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2019/dec/25/flood-defence-strategy-needs-a-radical-rethink

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Letters: Kate Barker on a blueprint to boost flood resilience across the country, Roger Abbott on a simple fact about rivers that seems to be consistently ignored and Pete Dorey on residents’ suffering

The call by leaders from the north and Midlands for an overhaul of how flood defence activity is funded and organised (Report, 23 December) will strike a chord with many across the country. Currently, 1m homes in the UK have a higher than 1% chance of flooding in any given year, and recent months have shown the devastating impact of flooding on households and businesses.

Looking beyond what the effective emergency response is, we must do more to plan how to adapt to climate change and not continue with the current cycle of reactive funding that typically follows floods.

Our National Infrastructure Assessment, published in July 2018, provides a blueprint for a stable, long-term funding programme. The government’s commitment to increase funding by £4bn over five years is a good start, but we need to be clear about what we want to achieve. To this end, the commission has recommended a nationwide flood resilience standard by 2050, to reduce the likelihood of flooding across the country.

Such an approach would avoid the present flood resilience postcode lottery and empower local communities to engage in the decision-making process on what forms of mitigation and adaptation work best in their particular context.

The government’s national infrastructure strategy is to be published with the next budget. We call on ministers to use this opportunity to endorse these proposals and ensure the UK is better protected against flood risks.Kate BarkerCommissioner, National Infrastructure Commission

• In recent years I have carried out research in New Orleans (post-Hurricane Katrina) and on the Somerset Levels (post-2014), and since then I have read many reports on behalf of residents who have experienced the horrors of being flooded. It is with dismay that I find a simple fundamental fact about rivers being consistently ignored: rivers love to move and wander. At times, and in certain places, they also love to flood. A beautiful benefit we gain from that is the wonderful landscapes we like to live among or visit, and to say things such as “Wow! Isn’t that a beautiful sight to behold?”

Another benefit is the dispersion of fluvial silts on to agricultural land and the dispersion of essential vegetative seed life. Once we begin to try to control rivers, telling them where we think they should go and restrain their natural course, we are asking for catastrophe – or at least catastrophe for succeeding generations.

So let me add my voice to a growing body of research that calls for the safest and cheapest flood defence policy: namely to respect rainfalls’ and rivers’ natural instincts, to stop building on floodplains, to let homes have gardens as soakaways and to exercise more wisdom and less hubris. In short, cut out political short-termism, curtail the construction industry’s lust for building wherever it can find space, listen to what the climate is screaming at us and implement radical changes to flood prevention that will save lives and livelihoods for generations to come.Dr Roger AbbottSenior research associate in natural disasters, Faraday Institute for Science and Religion, Cambridge

• I think Boris Johnson is right not to have visited areas affected by floods – the residents have suffered enough already (PM criticised for failing to visit regions hit by flooding, 24 December).Pete DoreyBath, Somerset

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