Pluvial (rainwater) flooding and deprivation

4/19/2013

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Heavy falls of rain over long periods can put almost any community at risk of pluvial flooding, that is flooding caused by surface run-off that is too much for the ground to absorb. Some work funded by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation links pluvial flooding to social deprivation and injustice in urban areas, here are the key findings:
1. Pluvial flood risk accounts for approximately one-third of flood risk in the UK. Approximately 2 million people in UK urban areas are exposed to an annual pluvial flood risk of 0.5 per cent or greater ('1-in-200 year' event).

2. An additional 1.2 million people in urban areas could be put at risk by 2050 due to a combination of climate change and population growth.

3. From a social justice perspective, it is important to know the characteristics of the population at risk, not just the number of properties in an affected area.

4. Settlements across the UK with higher rainfall tend to have greater levels of social deprivation, although the differences are small.

5. Changes to the cost and availability of insurance in the future have the potential to alter the socio-economic composition of flood risk areas and/or blight certain areas.

6. Pluvial flood risk can be heavily mitigated in new developments through a combination of avoiding the highest risk locations, investment in drainage systems, flood-proof building design and innovative surface water management schemes.

7. A key challenge remains for existing built-up areas at high risk, although surface water management can ameliorate risk when opportunities for redevelopment arise.

8. While recent flood management legislation around the UK has improved the priority given to pluvial flood risk, concerns still exist about partnership working, uncertainty about levels of risk (which can hinder planning), competing demands and capacity to respond.


Houston, D., Werritty, A., Bassett, D., Geddes, A., Hoolachan, A. and McMillan, M. 2010 Pluvial (rain-related) flooding in urban areas: the invisible hazard Joseph Rowntree Foundation York
http://www.jrf.org.uk/publications/pluvial-flooding-invisible-hazard 
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Scottish Flood Forum

4/17/2013

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'If your community suffers from flooding, or is at risk from future flood events, forming a community based flood resilience group to work on behalf of local residents and businesses is an effective way to minimise the effects of flooding. 61 community flood groups have been set up throughout Scotland by the Scottish Flood Forum and work closely with agencies such as the Scottish Environment Protection Agency (SEPA), local authorities, water companies and the emergency planning agencies. Flood groups closely reflect the interests of local communities and differ from area to area, depending on the particular issues faced by those communities and it is our role to provide help and ongoing support to all flood resilience groups' http://www.scottishfloodforum.org/flood-groups/

Does we need a Wales Flood Forum? (I think SFF is a Quango) Or could we set up community flood groups working with existing agencies?

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Building local knowledge into flood resilience

4/16/2013

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Academics McEwan and Jones conclude that experience of flooding in the UK in 2007 generated new understandings of the importance of local knowledges, which can challenge and contest ‘expert’ knowledge. The local knowledges of concern derive from self-interest and being ‘in place’ over time as well as ‘hobby’ knowledges such as natural history. The authors point out that local politics and power relations cannot be considered as separate from local knowledges. They claim that the experience of flooding has linked it to climate change in the public psyche. A combination of pluvial (rainwater related), fluvial (related to streams/rivers) and groundwater flooding, the cause was high intensity rainfall over a wide area and constituted ‘one of the greatest civil emergencies that the UK has faced’, according to the Cabinet Office (p.3). 

The Pitt Review suggests that communities be more involved in alleviating flood risks, including contributing to the cost themselves (p.3). Meanwhile, the Flood and Water Management Act (2010) invests local authorities with a leading role in flood risk management, along with the Environment Agency. McEwen and Jones identify a lacuna in knowledge of surface water (pluvial) mapping and modelling as well as regarding multiple flood events. Local knowledge becomes more valuable as exceptional conditions bring flooding to areas previously unaffected and so beyond the knowledge of experts and responsible agencies: local features (landscape) matter, down to and including pavement height, blocked drains, and recent cultivation. Participation in flood resilience is judged to be important, with the authors suggesting that community knowledge networks and pathways need identifying along with ‘bridge people’ who can liaise with experts and authorities. Local knowledge has been lost as local authorities contract out services such as street cleaning. Questions remain about how local knowledges can be connected to governance systems and whether institutional processes can accommodate such knowledges. It is may also prove interesting to enquire into whether awareness of climate change recedes along with fear as time passes since a flood.

McEwen, L. & O. Jones (2012) Building local/lay knowledges into community flood resilience planning after the July 2007 flood, Gloucestershire, UK Hydrology Research Vol 43 No 5 pp 675–688 

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Sympathy for argentina

4/5/2013

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5 April 2013: The Guardian reports that 57 people have been killed and more than 250,000 left without power after torrential rain in Buenos Aires and La Plata. As often happens in disasters, it seems, the people affected and the authorities appear to have different agendas and there is a tension (read Rebecca Solnit A Paradise Built in Hell, for instance). The Guardian has the Minister responsible and the Governor of the area fleeing an angry crowd in their motorcade!http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2013/apr/05/argentinian-rescuers-search-bodies-floods


The Pitt Review of lessons leaned from the 2007 floods in Britain put UK floods in the global context:  
‘There were over 200 major floods worldwide during 2007, affecting 180 million people. The human  cost was more than 8,000 deaths and over £40 billion worth of damage. But even against that dramatic back-drop, the floods that devastated England ranked as the most expensive in the world in 2007.... We are not sure whether last summer’s events were a direct result of climate change, but we do know that events of this kind are expected to become more frequent.’


Watch this space for further news and any appeals for help from Argentina
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Have we learned from 2007?

4/5/2013

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The Pitt Review
The Pitt Review of lessons learned from floods in 2007 made 92 recommendations. The Review was based on four core principles:

·         Start with the needs of those who have suffered flooding or are at risk
·         Change will only happen with effective leadership across the board
·         We must be willing to work together and share information
·         We must be much clearer about who does what

We have been through the Review to look closely at who it recommended shoud have responsibility for the various aspects of flood risk management, rescue and relief services. It’s interesting to consider whether Pitt’s recommendations have been implemented in your area because the key principles start with your needs and advocate good information flow and transparency.

Central government
Pitt recommends that the government and the insurance industry ‘work together to deliver a public education programme setting out the benefits of insurance in the context of flooding.’ Government is tasked with reviewing and updating Insurance for all: A good practice guide for providers of social housing, and with disseminating it effectively ‘to support the creation of insurance with rent schemes for low income households’ (Insurance for all appears rather to be defunct?). ‘Flood risk should be made part of the mandatory search requirements when people buy property, and should form part of Home Information Packs.’ Pitt recommends that developers and architects should be incorporating flood resilience into designs for the future. The Government aimed to incorporate appropriate measures as requirements in Building Regulations when they were revised in 2010 (But did this happen?). The Cabinet Office should provide advice to ensure that all Local Resilience Forums have effective and linked websites providing public information before, during and after an emergency. The Government should establish a programme to support and encourage individuals and communities to be better prepared and more self-reliant during emergencies, allowing the authorities to focus on those areas and people in greatest need.

Environment Agency
Pitt concludes that ‘government leadership should be supported by clear oversight of all flood risk management activity and the Environment Agency’s risk management responsibilities extended accordingly’ (What will that mean in Wales where the EA, The Countryside Council for Wales and the Forestry Commission have merged as Natural Resources Wales (NRW) from 1 April 2013?). Pitt suggests that the work carried out by the Environment Agency is not as transparent as it could be. Many responses stated that they never see the Environment Agency clearing rivers of vegetation or dredging, despite the fact that the work ahs been done. Pitt recommends that the EA publishes its schedules of work to ensure that the maintenance work that they perform is recognised. The EA is tasked to work with ‘local responders’ to raise awareness in flood risk areas, identifying ‘a range of mechanisms to warn the public, particularly the vulnerable, in response to flooding.’ The EA and the Met Office should urgently complete the production of a sliding scale of options for greater personalisation of public warning information, including costs, benefits and feasibility.

Local Authorities
A central theme of the Pitt Review is local leadership: ‘Direction and leadership from the centre needs to be matched at the community level.’ Local Authorities (LAs) bear the brunt of responsibility for implementing the recommendations: ‘The Review believes that the role of local authorities should be enhanced so that they take on responsibility for leading the coordination of flood risk management in their areas. LAs already have a substantial role because of their responsibilities for ordinary watercourses, drainage, highways and planning. Their place-shaping role and local democratic accountability will help to ensure that the right local action is taken.’ LAs were to extend eligibility for home improvement grants and loans to include flood resistance and resilience products for properties in high flood risk areas (Did this happen?). LAs were also tasked to compile ‘a local register of all the flood risk management and drainage assets (both underground and overland), including details of their condition and responsible owners’. LAs were to establish ‘mutual aid agreements in accordance with the guidance currently being prepared by the Local Government Association and the Cabinet Office.’ Meanwhile ‘upper tier’ LAs  ‘should be the lead responders in relation to multi-agency planning for severe weather emergencies at the local level and for triggering multi-agency arrangements in response to severe weather warnings and local impact assessments.’ Upper tier LAs should also establish Oversight and Scrutiny Committees to review work by public sector bodies and essential service providers in order to manage flood risk.

Stakeholders and communities

The Review recommends that ‘all stakeholders with responsibilities relating to flood risk to record and share relevant information and expertise’. Pitt acknowledges many local groups who want to take action to alleviate flood risk in their communities, remarking that this kind of scheme can end up being too low a priority for the Environment Agency. The onus is placed on central government to encourage ‘more local communities to promote innovative schemes, including contributing towards the costs themselves, with appropriate technical support from local authorities and the Environment Agency. Locally funded flood defences should become a bigger feature of this country’s flood risk management, not an exception brought about through unusual circumstances as they are now.’ Local authority contact centres should take the lead in dealing with general enquiries from the public during and after major flooding, redirecting calls to other organisations when appropriate.

Pitt suggests the setting up of a number of groups and committees. The Risk and Regulation Advisory Council is to explore how the public can improve their understanding of community risks, including those associated with flooding (and the government should then implement its findings). Local Recovery Coordination Groups should make early recommendations to elected LA members about longer-term regeneration and economic development opportunities. Oversight and Scrutiny Committees should prepare annual summaries of actions taken locally to manage flood risk and implement the Pitt Review. These reports should be public and reviewed by Government Offices and the Environment Agency. Local Resilience Forums should continue to develop plans for door-knocking, coordinated by local authorities, to enhance flood warnings before flooding and to provide information and assess welfare needs once flooding has receded.

http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20100807034701/http://archive.cabinetoffice.gov.uk/pittreview/thepittreview/final_report.html

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