FLOODING IN THE UNITED KINGDOM
"The possible effects of a changing climate is eclipsed by the more urgent question of acceptable planning. If property development continues to increase in high-risk areas, the frequency and intensity of natural catastrophes will inevitably increase too - even if the number of natural events remains constant. The designation of flood-prone areas as residential or industrial zones is already happening. More and more people are tending to settle immediately next to bodies of water. Almost ten percent of the UK population, about 1.7 million homes, and 130,000 commercial properties, accounting for about seven percent of total building stock, are located in potentially flood-prone areas. The tendency to develop such areas is likely to continue, especially as the government intends to create more than four million new homes by the year 2015 (Autumn Floods in Great Britain)."
Autumn Floods in Great Britain is Catastrophe Portrait II in the Annual Review of Natural Catastrophes 2000 published by the Munich Reinsurance Group. Munich 2001.
Flooding in the United Kingdom is increasing due to more extreme weather patterns brought about by climate change. Other reasons may have to do with increased run-off from hard surfaces and from some agricultural land. Coastal flooding is exacerbated by rising sea levels, also a result of climate change.
Floods are now on average nearly twice as frequent as they were one hundred years ago.
Over seven percent of the land area of England and Wales is at risk from flooding.
The Meteorological Office predict a very significant increase in the incidence of flooding over the next century as a result of climate change. Whether this predicted increase turns out to be cyclical or not, "today's extreme flood is tomorrow's norm".
Publications
Thames Estuary south-shoreland and north Kent
Flood-prone environments of North Kent are described in Housing, flooding and risk-ecology: Thames Estuary south-shoreland and north Kent (with Ilan Kelman), in The Journal of Architectural and Planning Research.
http://www.ilankelman.org/articles1/lewisetal.2009corr.pdf
Individual initiatives against flood risk
Stilts, bunds and institutional barriers
Sea flooding
Change and Vulnerability to Natural Hazard: Chiswell, Dorset
The physical permanence of a community cannot be assumed in a changing environmental condition. Vulnerability to the sea has increased during the one thousand years of Chiswell's existence, and is continuing.
Click here to view the article in full.
United Kingdom |
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| 2008 | The University of Bradford Disaster Research Unit 1973 - 1977 http://www.ilankelman.org/bdru.html |
| 1992 | "Them and Us":
Emergency planning and response in a social perspective Chapter 13 (pp195-202) in Hazard Management and Emergency Planning: Perspectives in Britain (Parker, Dennis; Handmer, John: Eds) James & James |
| 1988 | Something rotten in
the state of England ? The Storm of 16 October 1987 Newsletter of the International Hazards Panel (an ITDG Panel) No 2 March |
| 1987 | Risk, vulnerability
and survival:
Some post-Chernobyl implications for people, planning and civil defence Local Government Studies pp75-93 July/August |
| 1985 | Recovery after nuclear attack ? Projections from natural and other disasters Greater London Area War Studies (GLAWARS) Working Paper Polytechnic of the South Bank, London |
| 1985 | Alternative approaches
to civil defence planning; a civil survival strategy Greater London Area War Studies (GLAWARS) Working Paper Polytechnic of the South Bank, London |
| 1983 |
Change, and vulnerability
to natural hazard: Chiswell, Dorset The Environmentalist 3 / 4 pp277-287 Elsevier Sequoia Geneva |
| 1979 |
PDF Vulnerability to a
natural hazard:
geomorphic, technological and social change at Chiswell, Dorset Natural Hazards Research Working Papers 37 University of Colorado |
Flooding in the United Kingdom |
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| 2009 | Housing, flooding and risk-ecology: Thames Estuary and North Kent (with Ilan Kelman) Journal of Architectural and Planning Research 26/1 pp14-29 http://www.ilankelman.org/publications.html |
| 2001 |
Technical Approaches
to flood risk Management: Planning, Building Design and
Building Modification: An Architectural Viewpoint Submission of Evidence Institute of Civil Engineers Presidential Commission to review Technical Approaches to Flood Risk Management in England and Wales Learning to live with rivers Final Report ICE London November http://www.ice.org.uk/presidential.html |
| 1983 | Change, and Vulnerability to Natural Hazard: Chiswell, Dorset The Environmentalist, 3 (1983) 277-287 http://datum.gn.apc.org/folio/Chiswell/index.html |