The Building Research Establishment Group BRE has welcomed the Treasury’s £2.3 billion investment in flood defences but with one in six homes now under threat of flooding from rivers, sea and surface water a new approach to dealing with the risks is needed.
Dr Stephen Garvin who heads up the BRE Centre for Resilience launched earlier this year to address the issues around adapting the built environment so it can withstand the effects of climate change said:
‘There are 5.2 million homes at risk of flooding. This investment will protect 300,000 of these but a new approach to flood management is needed to reduce the risks further. The Centre urges the Government to think about the rise in surface water flooding, prevalent in urban areas as this requires a more adaptive flood management approach. Our urban environment continues to grow apace – surface water management needs to be embedded in the new developments we construct with things like sustainable urban drainage systems, green roofs to decrease water run off as well as localised flood resilient technologies.’
Dr Garvin launched his white paper ‘A Future Flood Resilient Built Environment’ at the first international conference and exhibition on resilience which took place at the BRE building science centre Over 350 people from organisations across the UK attended Resilience14 which explored the challenges around adapting the built environment to the more severe and unpredictable weather patterns that are a consequence of climate change.
The event featured two conferences: Britain Under Water and Britain Overheating with presentations from Defra, UNESCO, AXA Insurance, Oxford University, Public Health England and others which looked at the increasing threats of climate change to people, property and business as well as current and future adaption solutions.
‘A Future Flood Resilient Built Environment’ aims to stimulate a debate around the best approaches to flooding risk management. Among a number of concusions and recomendations in the paper, Dr. Garvin concludes that the UK construction industry is currently ill-prepared to adequately address flood resilience. He draws a parallel saying it is roughly where the industry was with regards to energy efficiency and sustainability prior to the first oil crisis.
Click here to download the paper in full.
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