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16 posts found

The Flood Knowledge Gap Between Communities and Institutions

In 1724, a local historian described one Berkshire village as "a low and watery place" where "water is a dominant theme … with disastrous floods, both within and beyond living memory." More than two centuries later, that village still requires…
Posted on 11th May, 2026
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Acqua alta: how Venice lives with flooding, and what the UK takes from it

Acqua alta is the tidal flooding that covers parts of Venice several dozen times a year, and the city stays open through almost all of it. The reason is not the barrier at the lagoon mouth. It is that the…
Posted on 23rd February, 2026
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How Increasing Rainfall Is Changing Flood Risk in the UK

Flooding across the UK is becoming more frequent, more widespread and easier to trigger, and increasing rainfall is the reason. The shift is driven less by wilder storms than by a wetter atmosphere and wetter autumns and winters, which together…
Posted on 5th February, 2026
, in SuDS 
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Does Flood Risk Affect House Prices? How Much, and for How Long

Flood risk is priced into the UK housing market, and in June 2026 the shape of that pricing changed. Research published in Nature's Communications Earth & Environment tracked 27 million property sales across England over 28 years and found that…
Posted on 16th January, 2026
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Guildford Flood Alleviation Scheme: flood risk, defences and what happens next

The Guildford Flood Alleviation Scheme is a long-term project by the Environment Agency, Guildford Borough Council and Surrey County Council to reduce flood risk to Guildford town centre from the River Wey. It proposes more than two kilometres of new…
Posted on 14th January, 2026
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Construction Stage Flood Risk and the Lessons from Attleborough

Flood risk is most often scrutinised at the point a planning application is determined. Flood Risk Assessments are prepared, mitigation is proposed, and decisions are taken on the assumption that what has been assessed on paper is what will exist…
Posted on 13th January, 2026
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Shrewsbury Floods, Ironbridge and Bewdley: What 25 Years of Severn Defences Changed

Shrewsbury floods because the town sits inside a loop of the River Severn, on ground the river has always used, at the foot of a catchment that gathers rain across mid Wales. Ironbridge and Bewdley flood for the same reason…
Posted on 5th November, 2025
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York Flooding: Why the Ouse Rises, and What 25 Years of Defences Changed

York flooding is not a freak event. It is the predictable consequence of where the city was built: at the meeting point of two rivers, at the bottom of a catchment draining most of the Yorkshire Dales, on ground flat…
Posted on 5th November, 2025
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Runways Underwater: The 2000 Crawley and Gatwick Floods

The Crawley and Gatwick floods of November 2000 saw the Gatwick Stream and the wider Upper Mole catchment overwhelm homes, roads and even the runways at one of the country's busiest airports. They were one local chapter of the wettest…
Posted on 4th November, 2025
, in SuDS 
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25 Years On: The Legacy of the Lewes Floods

The Lewes floods of October 2000 were among the most severe England has seen in living memory. On 12 October 2000, after the wettest autumn on record, the River Ouse overwhelmed the town in a matter of hours, inundating 613…
Posted on 3rd November, 2025
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Planning is falling behind flood risk, says Aviva

Aviva’s Building future communities analysis presents a stark assessment of flood risk in England. By the middle of the century, millions more properties could be exposed to flooding, with risk increasingly driven by surface water flooding rather than rivers or…
Posted on 15th October, 2025
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Texas Flooding: UK Lessons in Planning and Climate Resilience

The floods have been described as among the worst natural disasters in Texas history by officials and multiple media outlets. As of 10 July, at least 120 people are confirmed dead and 173 remain missing, with Camp Mystic, an all-girls…
Posted on 10th July, 2025
, in FEMA 
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What the 2025–30 London Surface Water Strategy Means for Planning

As climate change accelerates and urban environments become denser, cities around the world face mounting challenges in managing water. Nowhere is this truer than in London, where the convergence of ageing infrastructure, rising population pressures, and increasingly erratic weather patterns…
Posted on 22nd May, 2025
, in SuDS 
, in TfL 
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Natural Flood Management: EA Research Deep Dive & Analysis

Natural flood management (NFM) does work, but the honest answer is more useful than a simple yes. The Environment Agency's latest evidence shows that measures which slow, store and filter water across a catchment can measurably lower flood peaks, especially…
Posted on 13th February, 2025
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The Pitt Review: impact, legacy and the gaps that remain

The Pitt Review was the independent inquiry, published in 2008, that reshaped how the United Kingdom manages flood risk. Commissioned by the government after the catastrophic summer floods of 2007, and led by Sir Michael Pitt, it made 92 recommendations…
Posted on 3rd January, 2025
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Boscastle 2004 Floods: Lessons for a Wetter Climate

On 16 August 2004, a torrent of water tore through the Cornish village of Boscastle. What began as a humid summer afternoon became one of the most dramatic and widely televised flood events in modern British history. Within hours, cars…
Posted on 16th August, 2024
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