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Kasumi-tei: how Japan built levees with gaps in them on purpose, and why it stopped

An open levee is a flood embankment built in overlapping segments with deliberate gaps left between them, so floodwater can spread sideways onto farmland as the river rises and drain back out through the same gaps as it falls. Japan…
Posted on 18th September, 2026
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Medieval drainage: the moats, monks and great drains you can still go and see

Medieval drainage has a public-relations problem. The popular picture is a filthy street, a chamber pot tipped out of a window and a moat brimming with sewage. A thousand years of squalor, sitting neatly between the Romans and the Victorians.…
Posted on 8th September, 2026
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Glacier Collapse, Not a Glacial Lake Outburst Flood: What Happened in Nepal

At 08:37 on 26 August 2026, a mountainside in the Langtang Himal gave way. Seven minutes later a wall of rock, ice and liquefied sediment crossed the Nepal-China border twenty-two kilometres away, moving at close to 190 kilometres an hour.…
Posted on 2nd September, 2026
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What have the Romans ever done for us? Aside from the drainage, obviously

Ask a Roman what they ever did for us and you would probably get a shrug and a wave at, well, everything. Put the same question to a flood-risk engineer, though, and the answer turns oddly specific: a startling amount…
Posted on 11th August, 2026
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Skinningrove Flood Alleviation Scheme: £13m Defences Begin in 2026

Construction has started on the Skinningrove flood alleviation scheme, a £13 million Environment Agency project, delivered with Redcar and Cleveland Borough Council, that will protect more than 100 homes in the coastal village by 2028. At its heart is a…
Posted on 10th August, 2026
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Shoreline Management Plans Explained: Hold the Line, Managed Realignment and No Active Intervention

England's coast runs to roughly 6,000km, and nearly all of it is covered by a shoreline management plan: the document that decides whether a stretch of shoreline gets defended, left alone, or allowed to move. A shoreline management plan (SMP)…
Posted on 27th July, 2026
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Erosion of trust: the government’s own words versus its coastal erosion grant

There is no coastal erosion compensation in the UK. If the sea takes your home, there is no insurance payout and no statutory compensation for the land or the building. Until 15 July 2026 there was a demolition grant that…
Posted on 24th July, 2026
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Romsey Flood Alleviation Scheme: How New Defences Are Reducing Flood Risk in 2026

The Romsey flood alleviation scheme has just been strengthened again. In May 2026 the Environment Agency finished raising Stockbridge Road near Timsbury by around 40 centimetres and rebuilt the flood defence at a nearby weed-recovery compound: the latest step in…
Posted on 6th July, 2026
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Why the Somerset Levels flood — and what £50m will (and won’t) fix

The Somerset Levels flood because they are a low-lying former wetland, much of which sits at or below the level of the rivers and tides meant to drain it. In a wet winter, water arrives faster than the catchment can…
Posted on 17th June, 2026
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Leaky Dams and Flood Risk: What They Do, Where They Work, and What They Can’t Fix

Anyone who has watched the latest series of Clarkson's Farm will have seen Jeremy Clarkson wading into a stream at Diddly Squat to build what he gleefully describes, after a bit of reading on the government's website, as "large, leaky,…
Posted on 13th June, 2026
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Residual Flood Risk Explained: How It’s Assessed and Managed

Residual flood risk is the risk left over after defences, drainage and mitigation have done what they can. No scheme removes risk entirely. A defended site still floods if a barrier is overtopped, if a defence breaches, or if a…
Posted on 9th June, 2026
, in NPPF 
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Can You Build a House on Stilts in a Flood Zone? Floodable Voids Explained

Yes, you can build a house on stilts in a flood zone in England, and a floodable void is the engineering that lets you do it. A floodable void is an open space beneath a building that floodwater flows into,…
Posted on 4th June, 2026
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Property Flood Resilience and Planning: The 2025 FloodReady Action Plan, the CIRIA Code and Build Back Better

Property flood resilience (PFR) has moved from the margins of flood policy towards the centre of it. The 2025 FloodReady action plan, the maturing CIRIA Code of Practice, and insurance-side schemes like Build Back Better have made the idea of…
Posted on 14th May, 2026
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Fens 2100+ explained: what the Environment Agency’s evidence actually says

Fens 2100+ is the Environment Agency's long-term flood risk and water management programme for the Lincolnshire and Cambridgeshire Fens, run in partnership with Internal Drainage Boards, local authorities and water companies. In April 2026 it published a summary baseline report,…
Posted on 28th April, 2026
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£1.4bn Flood Defence Funding 2026/27 Explained

The UK government has announced £1.4 billion of flood defence funding for 2026 / 27, supporting more than 600 schemes across England, as set out in the official £1.4bn flood investment announcement. The funding is intended to reduce flood risk…
Posted on 18th March, 2026
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CIRIA C821 Explained: Community Maintenance of Flood Risk Assets

CIRIA C821 is a free three-part guidance suite, published in 2025, on how community groups can help maintain local flood risk assets and how the authorities responsible for those assets should work with them. Its value is the line it…
Posted on 6th March, 2026
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Flood Funding Reform 2026: The New FCERM Guidance Explained

Defra has published new guidance governing how flood and coastal erosion schemes in England will be funded and prioritised from 2026 onwards. This is not a minor procedural update. It reshapes how projects are classified, how funding levels are calculated,…
Posted on 3rd March, 2026
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Wales’ £85m Flood Investment Explained

The Welsh Government has announced £85 million of funding for flood and coastal erosion risk management in Wales for 2026 – 27, describing it as the highest annual allocation ever delivered. The headline figure is significant. It builds on more…
Posted on 27th February, 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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Does the Jubilee River Increase Downstream Flood Risk?

The Jubilee River is an 11.6 kilometre flood relief channel on the River Thames, opened in 2002 to lower flood levels in Maidenhead, Windsor and Eton. Because it moves a large volume of water from one part of the river…
Posted on 12th February, 2026
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River Thames Scheme delays: what a stalled flood defence means for planning

The River Thames Scheme delays have now outlasted the review that caused them. The Environment Agency and Surrey County Council closed their mid-project review on 28 May 2026 and confirmed that the engineering was sound and needed no redesign. Three…
Posted on 9th February, 2026
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Fowlea Brook flood scheme: what £12.6m has changed in Stoke-on-Trent

The Fowlea Brook flood scheme is a £12.6 million Environment Agency project, completed in February 2026, that has rebuilt the defences along a constrained urban watercourse running through the centre of Stoke-on-Trent. It reduces flood risk to 333 homes and…
Posted on 6th February, 2026
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Managed retreat from flood risk at Clydach Terrace

Sixteen flood-prone homes on Clydach Terrace in Ynysybwl, Rhondda Cynon Taf, are set to be purchased and demolished by the local authority, bringing an end to years of repeated flooding, fear and uncertainty for the people who live there. Publicly,…
Posted on 3rd February, 2026
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Nine hours of warning: the 1953 North Sea flood and the failure that killed 307 people

The 1953 North Sea flood killed 307 people in England on the night of Saturday 31 January and the morning of Sunday 1 February. It remains the deadliest natural disaster in modern British history. Sea defences failed in 1,200 separate…
Posted on 31st 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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Below Standard Flood Defences: Protected on Paper, Vulnerable in Practice

Flood defence condition is measured against a target, not against whether a wall is still standing. On 1 April 2026 the Environment Agency reported that 93% of its flood risk assets in high consequence systems were in the required condition,…
Posted on 24th December, 2025
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Flood Resilience in England: A Wake-Up Call

Flooding in England is no longer a localised hazard — it is a national systems challenge. The House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee’s latest report, Flood Resilience in England (HC 550, October 2025), delivers a blunt assessment: the country remains…
Posted on 29th October, 2025
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How to Drive Through Flood Water

Knowing how to drive through flood water safely comes down to one rule above all others: if you can avoid it, don't drive through it at all. The Environment Agency advises drivers not to enter water that is moving or…
Posted on 28th October, 2025
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Defra Confirms £10.5bn Flood Defence Funding Overhaul

In April, Defra’s consultation proposing a major overhaul of England’s flood funding system was launched, aiming to simplify access to investment and accelerate protection for communities most at risk. That consultation has now concluded, and the government has confirmed that…
Posted on 14th October, 2025
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£7.9bn Flood Defence Programme: What the Money Actually Buys

The £7.9 billion flood defence programme is the ten-year capital settlement for flood and coastal erosion risk management in England. It was set at the June 2025 Spending Review, started on 1 April 2026 and runs to March 2036. Over…
Posted on 19th June, 2025
, in NPPF 
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Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme (OFAS) Approved

The Oxford Flood Alleviation Scheme (OFAS) is a £176 million flood defence project, led by the Environment Agency, that will reduce flood risk to more than 1,600 homes and businesses across Oxford and the surrounding villages. At its heart is…
Posted on 16th May, 2025
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Thames Barrier: Closures, Cost and Its Future

The Thames Barrier has closed 221 times for flood defence since it became operational in 1982, a figure the Environment Agency states as correct at 17 November 2025. Of those Thames Barrier closures, 119 held back a tidal surge from…
Posted on 14th February, 2025
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Flood Risk and the UK Housing Market: A Slow-Building Financial Threat

Rising flood risk is a long-term threat to the UK housing market, to the mortgages secured against it, and to the wider financial system. For now, most households at risk are shielded by Flood Re, the industry scheme that keeps…
Posted on 29th January, 2025
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The Great Flood of 1968: what two floods taught UK flood risk practice

The Great Flood of 1968 is really two floods. In July, a single night of rain over the Mendips tore bridges out of the Chew Valley and killed seven people. Ten weeks later, in the middle of September, much of…
Posted on 14th September, 2023
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What to Do After a Flood: A UK Recovery Guide

Knowing what to do after a flood comes down to sequence. Make the building safe, record the damage for your insurer, get the water and silt out inside 24 to 48 hours, strip out and disinfect over the following weeks,…
Posted on 23rd August, 2019
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Does Glastonbury flood? Why Worthy Farm turns to mud

Does Glastonbury flood? Yes, though almost never because a river burst its banks. Worthy Farm sits in a shallow valley on clay with a watercourse through the middle, and what turns the site to mud is rain arriving faster than…
Posted on 22nd June, 2017
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Amphibious houses in the UK: can you get one approved?

An amphibious house sits on ordinary foundations for most of its life. When floodwater arrives it rises inside a purpose-built dock and floats, held straight by vertical guide posts, then settles back as the water drops. Nobody moves out. Britain…
Posted on 1st March, 2017
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How to protect your home from flooding: a UK homeowner’s guide

You cannot stop a river rising or a storm drain backing up. What you can decide is how much of that water reaches your rooms, and how much it costs you when it does. Knowing how to protect your home…
Posted on 25th September, 2015
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