Improving our strategic approach to flood risk

We think the draft Strategy’s vision and strategic objectives should be made more ambitious in terms of:

1. Embracing a holistic approach to water management. That is to say integrating water resource management more closely with flood risk management so as to ensure a clear linkage through drought, flood risk and water quality.
2. Having a broader ‘Place Based Approach’ to managing water related risks. This should enable FCERM schemes and projects to take a catchment approach that integrate with other wider benefits and providers of infrastructure and land management.
3. Encouraging a greater sense of opportunity and ambition in FCERM schemes and projects by embracing adaptive and innovative approaches to flood, coast and water level management.

The Strategy should ensure that the new concept of standards in flood resilience takes a wide-ranging risk-based approach to FCERM assets and systems within catchments and along the coast. A critical component that needs to be urgently addressed within the Strategy is securing the safe functioning of embanked watercourses, coastal/estuarine embankments, and reservoirs, given the demonstrable risk to life that they pose.

The Strategy’s measures need to establish the clearer alignment of funding streams and direction with other Government departments and agencies in their delivery of infrastructure and management of climate change. At the same time we need to appraise and significantly overhaul the Government’s financial and fiscal mechanisms and processes to enable private finance to better invest in FCERM.

The Strategy needs to more clearly articulate the role of all Risk Management Authorities and Regional Flood & Coastal Committees, in order to provide a clear vision for growing and strengthening them, as competent bodies with skilled and knowledgeable people, to share the load.

Should look more broadly than Natural Flood Management to a range of land management practices that farmers can undertake on productive agricultural land to reduce flood risk, manage water resources and soil. These should be fully developed and incentivised through the next Environmental Land Management Scheme.

Partnership funding needs to empower local decision making for communities, businesses, and local risk management authorities to act to take measures to reduce flood risk.

Needs to better articulate the critical importance and value of maintaining assets and systems across flood and water management. Setting measures to ensure that the most appropriate authority is facilitated to manage each and every stretch of coast and river, such as Public Sector Cooperation Agreements, de-maining and ‘Transfer Powers’.

Appraisal of valuation of benefits is needed to ensure that agricultural land and infrastructure through rural areas is accurately assessed on its economic importance to the UK.

The resilience approach must look to work with land managers to make agricultural land available for water when needed whilst remaining highly productive. There is much more we can learn from Europe in this area in terms of establishing the right package of incentives, reward, and remediation.

FCERM should become a much more integral part of child education throughout the National Curriculum, building greater awareness of the impacts of our changing climate.