The government confirmed the terms of reference for the National Flood Resilience Review, which will be chaired by the Chancellor of the Duchy of Lancaster, Oliver Letwin.
Established in December 2015 following Storm Desmond, the Review will assess how the country can be better protected from future flooding and increasingly extreme weather events.
It will focus on four key areas: updating our climate modelling and stress-testing the nation’s resilience to flood risk; assessing the resilience of our important infrastructure like electricity substations; our temporary defences; and our future investment strategy.
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20th July 2016
‘The Government’s Flood Resilience review was due to be published this week, but has been postponed because the politician in charge, Oliver Letwin, lost his seat in Cabinet.
- Britain’s infrastructure is vulnerable to flooding from extreme rain, a government review will say. It warns that flooding from rivers and at the coasts is likely to get worse with climate change. BBC environment analyst Roger Harrabin reports.
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- Future flood warnings in the UK: Swenja Surminski is senior research fellow at the Grantham Research Institute on Climate Change and the Environment.
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Infrastructure ‘still faces flood risk’
The conclusions from the Review will be widely welcomed, but some critics warn the report masks the full problem by ignoring some types of flooding.
That is because it focuses on floods on rivers and at the coast, whereas some floods are caused by rainfall failing to drain away far from rivers or the sea.
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