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UK Floods Case Study November 2019

The UK experienced an extreme weather event in November 2019 when exceptionally heavy rainfall caused flooding in parts of the UK. Heavy downpours across large parts of northern England led to surface water and river flooding in parts of Yorkshire, Nottinghamshire, Greater Manchester, Derbyshire and Lincolnshire.

According to the Met Office, on Thursday 7th November 2019 over half of the average rainfall for the whole of November fell in parts of the Midlands and Yorkshire.

If you have images and/or videos of flooding or an eye witness account that you would be happy to share on an interactive flood impact map we are developing please send them [email protected]

What caused flooding in the UK in November 2019?

A large area of prolonged rainfall fell on parts of the UK in November 2019. Some areas experienced the whole of Novembers average rainfall over a period of 24 hours. Sheffield experienced 84mm of rainfall. The rainfall was caused by an area low pressure stalling over the UK.

Further reading/watching: 

BBC Weather Overview 

What were the effects the extreme weather in November 2019?

About 500 homes have been flooded in Doncaster with more than 1,000 properties evacuated in areas hit by the floods.

South Yorkshire Fire and Rescue said it had declared a major incident on the evening of Friday 8th November and firefighters rescued more than 40 people from the Fishlake area, near Doncaster. Residents of Fishlake said it was the first time the village had flooded in 100 years.

Empty coffins were seen floating inside the workshop of a flooded funeral parlour in the village.

Some villagers had to spend the night at a nearby pub, where staff said they had seen people crying because of the devastation.

The village church is collecting food to distribute to residents and roast dinners were delivered on Sunday to those who had remained in their homes.

Reseidents have complained that the River Don has not been dredged recently.

According to the BBC, Adrian Gill, a flood manager at the Environment Agency, said did not currently dredge the River Don “because we don’t think that’s the right thing to do” but the situation could be reviewed in the future.

Water sports enthusiast and teacher Mark Ibbotson, from Doncaster, said he, along with his 13-year-old son Logan, had rescued more than 30 people – including two babies – from a number of streets using his inflatable boat in Bentley where homes have been hit by flooding.

One of the most severely hit areas has been Bentley in Doncaster, where flooding affected many homes 12 years ago.

One resident told BBC Radio Sheffield: “The worry is our insurance policies are expensive as it is because of the 2007 floods, so now we’re all worried whether we’re going to get reinsured.”

Extensive flooding affected Rotherham , where residents were told to stay at home and not leave unless asked to do so by emergency services. Some have been taken to safety by boats.

Dozens of people were forced to spend the night in the Meadowhall shopping centre .

In Derbyshire, the River Derwent at Chatsworth reached its highest recorded level and council workers put up sandbags around Matlock and Matlock Bath, where the river was “dangerously high” .

A number of properties in Derby city centre were flooded, however, a full evacuation was not ordered as the River Derwent didn’t burst its banks to the extent emergency services believed it would.

The A52 – the main road route into Derby – was closed westbound between the city and the M1 along with a handful of smaller roads in the county.

Residents from 12 homes in Mansfield, Nottinghamshire, were unable to return home after a mudslide on Thursday led to 35 properties being evacuated .

In Nottinghamshire, residents living in mobile homes close to the River Trent in Newark were urged to move to higher ground.

On Friday, the floods claimed the life of a woman who was swept into the River Derwent at Rowsley in Derbyshire. Her body was found about two miles away in Darley Dale. She was named earlier as Derbyshire’s former High Sherriff Annie Hall .

Trains were cancelled in Yorkshire and parts of the East Midlands as rail routes were flooded.

BBC reporter Richard Cadey said some roads around Fishlake had been closed and the village was “effectively cut off because of flooding”. He said people on the ground had told him 90% of the homes there had been flooded.

The River Don, which flows through Sheffield, Rotherham and Doncaster, hit its highest recorded level at just over 6.3m (21ft), higher than it was in 2007 when it also flooded.

Sources: 

England flooding: River warnings and rail delays continue

Flooding in pictures/videos

Torrential downpours flood parts of northern England – BBC

Flooding in Yorkshire – In Pictures – The Guardian

England flooding: A tour of a flooded house in Fishlake

River Derwent Flooding – Drone Video

Helicopter captures footage of flooded South Yorkshire

What were the responses to the UK floods in November 2019?

More than 100 flood warnings were put in place across England. The Environment Agency (EA) urged people to take them seriously.

The Environment Agency took to social media to warn people about the potential impacts of flooding.

AMBER warning for flood risk today ⚠️- rain will rotate over north and north midlands bringing heavy rain on already sodden ground – take care – flood warning updates here https://t.co/K5GUW3z87V pic.twitter.com/mDDAC3uLXc — John Curtin (@johncurtinEA) November 7, 2019

The Environment Agency worked day and night to reduce the impact of flooding. The Environment Agency responded to the flood risk by working closely with police, fire and rescue, local authorities and partners to reduce the risk of flooding and keep communities safe. On the ground, Environment Agency field teams worked through the night to operate flood storage areas and pump away flood water.

A major incident was declared in South Yorkshire,

Some residents were “angry and frustrated” at Doncaster Council – claiming it had not provided sandbags early enough to prevent properties from flooding, the station reported.

Political leaders visited areas affected by floods. On the campaign trail Boris Johnson promised over £2 billion to improve flood defences.

South Yorkshire Police said it had extra officers out on patrol to “protect the evacuated areas and support those affected by the floods”.

Following a meeting of COBRA, the government’s emergency committee, Prime Minister Boris Johnson anounced the following measures :

• An extra 100 Army personnel deployed from Wednesday to support the recovery effort in South Yorkshire
• Funding for local councils where households and businesses have been affected – equivalent to £500 per eligible household
• Up to £2,500 for small and medium-sized businesses which have suffered severe impacts not covered by insurance

Six days after the heavy rain, army personnel provided support to flood-hit communities .

Environment Agency warnings

Environment Agency working day and night to reduce flood impact

How effective were the mitigation strategies introduced since the 2007 floods?

Flood defences put in place in South Yorkshire managed to significantly reduce the impact of Thursday’s floods, the Environment Agency (EA) has said.

River levels in parts of the county rose overnight to almost the same as they were in June 2007, when two people died in Millhouses and the Wicker.

Despite a major incident being declared on Thursday, the EA said the area was protected by new walls and flood gates.

The river levels around Meadowhall were high, but the EA said its defences, as well as the ones put in by Meadowhall, had lessened the damage.

Elsewhere in South Yorkshire, £3m was spent by the EA to repair and improve defences running along Ea Beck , in the villages of Toll Bar and Bentley near Doncaster.

However, people living in settlements downstream of Sheffield have complained about the impact of the recently constructed defences.  In Bentley, a low-lying neighbourhood on the north side of the River Don, forlorn terraced streets are still knee-deep in water. “You don’t have to be a hydrologist to see what’s happened,” said one man interviewed by a Guardian journalist . “Sheffield built flood defences in 2015-16. They spent about £20m protecting the lower Don. So the water has nowhere to go than the next place, Rotherham and then Doncaster.” He went on to say that residents received a “red alert” on Thursday night that there was a risk of flooding. He phoned an emergency number and requested sandbags. He was told that the council was not going to distribute them because the River Don’s banks had not been breached.

When the sandbags eventually arrived the community worked together to distribute them.

South Yorkshire flooding: Defences ‘reduce impact’

Related articles:

How do you stop flooding? 

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Extreme UK flood levels are happening much more often than they used to, analysis shows

Professor of Hydroclimatology, University of Oxford

Principal Hydrologist, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology

Disclosure statement

Louise Slater is Professor of Hydroclimatology at Oxford University and a Future Leaders Fellow funded by UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Slater leads the Hydroclimate Extremes research group which studies how floods and other extreme events are changing over time. She is also a member of the UK Flood Hydrology Scientific and Technical Advisory Group.

Jamie Hannaford is a Principal Hydrologist and Group Leader at the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology. He is also a visiting Associate Professor at the Irish Climate And Research Units (ICARUS) at Maynooth University, Ireland. Hannaford is the scientific lead for the UK Centre for Ecology and Hydrology’s water monitoring work in the programme UK-SCAPE. He is also the scientific lead for the UK National River Flow Archive (NRFA) and the UK Hydrological Outlook.

University of Oxford provides funding as a member of The Conversation UK.

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Heavy rain across southern Britain meant that most rivers in England swelled at the beginning of 2024, prompting widespread flooding.

The River Trent was among the most severely affected. Water levels at the Drakelow gauging station in the west Midlands reached 3.88 metres on January 4 – well above the previous record set less than four years earlier in February 2020.

Are floods growing larger and happening more often in the UK ? There are two ways to answer this question. One is to consult computer models which project Earth’s climate in the future, and the other is to search the historical record.

Climate projections are important but highly uncertain as they indicate a wide range of potential futures for any given river . Projections also only tell part of the story as they do not reflect the patterns of water use, changes to groundwater levels or to the urban environment that can decide flooding on a particular river.

That’s why we give equal importance to historical data, although we cannot project past changes directly into the future. Historical archives of river monitoring data can help us understand how the largest floods are changing on the River Trent.

For instance, how is the 50-year water level (the highest point a river would be expected to reach in 50 years on average) changing? On the River Trent at Drakelow, the 50-year water level has risen from about 3.46 metres in 1959 to 3.83 metres in 2024. This means the largest floods are indeed getting bigger.

How the January 2024 floods compare

The flood water level on the Trent at the start of January 2024 was actually higher than what scientists would consider a once-in-50-year event in today’s warmer climate.

Another way to understand how much floods have changed is to consider how often they happen today compared with the past. If we look at the 50-year level from 1959 (about 3.46 metres), how often would such a flood occur in today’s climate?

On the Trent, a 3.46-metre flood level would now be expected to occur every 9.38 years, on average, in 2024. This makes sense, considering there have already been six events in which the river level exceeded 3.5 metres since the 1980s. The historical data shows that extreme water levels are being reached more frequently on the Trent.

Our analysis of the Trent aligns with results from a previous study which looked at rivers across the rest of the UK . In many places, 50-year floods are now happening less than every ten years, on average.

This is partly due to climate change and also partly due to natural variations in the climate which see rivers cycle through spells of more and less flooding. The UK went through a “flood-poor” period in the 1960s, 70s and 80s, and has been going through a “flood-rich” period since then.

Prepare for worse

It is worth noting that there are caveats to this type of analysis which tries to assess how extreme events are changing over time. Caution must be exercised when looking at long records of river levels given changes in river management practices and measurement techniques over time.

It should also be noted that these results use a different methodology to the industry standard for flood estimation.

But what matters is not the precise changes in the frequency of major floods (from 50 years down to nine or even two-and-a-half years, according to some statistical methods). It is understanding that the frequency of large floods is changing fast.

For many UK rivers with more extensive historical archives of river level measurements, floods appear to be occurring far more frequently than before. In a smaller number of places, they are occurring less frequently.

We need to better understand how flood risk will evolve in response to further human-induced warming. The UK’s efforts to predict and prepare for future floods are supported by the Environment Agency’s flood hydrology roadmap , which is mobilising a wide community of researchers and practitioners.

Overall, the UK must prepare to live with bigger floods and be able to predict flood-rich periods several years ahead. This starts with an understanding of how the severity and frequency of such events is changing.

To support this effort, we are preparing a range of tools to guide flood planners, including an interactive map allowing users to explore how flood return periods are changing across the UK. Being better prepared for extreme events in a warming climate starts with understanding what it will mean for your local area.

Don’t have time to read about climate change as much as you’d like? Get a weekly roundup in your inbox instead. Every Wednesday, The Conversation’s environment editor writes Imagine, a short email that goes a little deeper into just one climate issue. Join the 30,000+ readers who’ve subscribed so far.

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Helping UK communities and businesses become more flood resilient

The challenge.

Flood risk to people, buildings and businesses is predicted to rise in coming years, with a significant impact on health, safety and the economy. Climate change will mean more frequent and extreme events, so flood management, and the methods developed to support it, will need to respond to unprecedented change. Developing more efficient and accurate flood forecasting models is therefore a priority.

Between 2016 and 2021 the UK will have invested £2.6 billion in flood defences protecting hundreds of thousands of homes and this amount will double between 2021 and 2027. One challenge is to design and select flood defence schemes that provide optimum protection. Together with appropriate flood forecasting methods, such schemes can maximise the warning, giving enough lead-time to take action before floods occur.

The research

Flood research is a core area of UKCEH expertise. This includes flood risk estimation, provision of data for flood risk mapping and assessment, exploring natural flood management solutions, real-time and seasonal flood forecasting and assessing future flood risk resulting from climate change.

Flood Estimation Handbook

The UK’s standard methods for calculating flood and rainfall risk were developed at UKCEH and are constantly updated with the latest data and methodological developments and can be applied at any point on the UK river network. The national peak flows dataset, underpinning the application of FEH methods, is updated annually by UKCEH through its National River Flow Archive in partnership with the UK Measuring Authorities. The FEH includes a model for estimating how likely extreme rainfall events are to occur across the UK. This model can estimate storm frequency for durations ranging from less than 1 hour to several days and return periods from 12 months to over 10,000 years.

Development of real-time flood forecasting

The Flood Forecasting Centre (FFC) is a partnership between the Environment Agency and the Met Office to forecast all natural forms of flooding. UKCEH’s Grid-to-Grid model sits at the heart of the FFC, translating rainfall into river flows to predict potential river flooding. UKCEH has built on this in partnership with the FFC and other collaborators to develop the Surface Water Flooding Hazard Impact Model, a new method of real-time forecasting of surface water flood impact.

Assessment of climate change impacts on hydrological response

UKCEH explored the expected changes to the UK hydrological system to climatic change by translating climate projections into expected changes in extreme river flows. The impacts on peak river flows were modelled up to 2100 and across Great Britain.

The outcomes

The UK is now better prepared for flood events, with more people protected and more communities given warning earlier. The FEH alone has been estimated to save up to £31 million per annum. The flood risk maps produced using FEH data mean that insurance companies have a better understanding of property flood risks and can more precisely offer products to their customers.

FEH methods have also influenced guidance, improving safety and efficiency across the construction and water management sectors. They are recommended in the Construction Industry Research and Information Association (CIRIA) sustainable drainage system manual. The latest FEH rainfall model has been formally adopted by OFWAT as their method of assessing the severity of storm events.

The new Surface Water Flooding Hazard Impact Model (SWFHIM) approach builds on initial city-scale applications for the 2014 Glasgow Commonwealth Games. These notably allowed assessment of risk during the men’s cycling road race when heavy rainfall led to surface water on the roads. The SWFHIM was then developed and trialled for country-wide application across England and Wales and subsequently incorporated into FFC operational systems in 2020.

UKCEH’s work on climate change impacts enabled the Environment Agency, the Scottish Environment Protection Agency and the Welsh Government to update policy for local planners and flood management authorities.

“The Met Office estimates that up to 10% of the damage caused by flooding can be avoided through early warnings provided by NERC models such as the grid-to-grid model developed by UKCEH. On an average year this could prevent up to £127m in damages to homes, buildings, farmland and infrastructure.” Independent assessment of the impacts of NERC research activities

“This data has provided us with a step-change in the way that we underwrite flood risk in the UK. Visualisation and analysis of flood risk at the individual address level is now a much easier, quicker, and more precise process for us.” Chubb Insurance on Ambiental’s UK FloodMap4™

“The ground-breaking capabilities developed by SEPA to alert for surface water flooding was an essential part of our contingency planning during the Commonwealth Games.” Scottish Environment Minister

UK Government, Flood Forecasting Centre, regulators, consultancies, insurance industry, planners, developers and academics

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UK towns and cities hit by flash flooding 51 times since 2007

Flooding in past 14 years has caused major disruption to schools, hospitals and care homes, analysis finds

Flooding over the past 14 years has caused major disruption to towns and cities, schools, hospitals and care homes, a study reveals.

The analysis shows towns and cities have been hit by flash flooding 51 times. Fifteen hospitals and 68 schools have also suffered from rising flood waters, which have caused major disruption to patients and to children.

The analysis , carried out by the Conservative-leaning thinktank Bright Blue , says that with increased flooding due to the climate emergency, the government must do more to improve the resilience of communities, businesses, and other infrastructure.

Using a form of artificial intelligence called Natural Language Processing (NLP), the data was collected by analysing archives of thousands of local, regional and national newspapers.

The report comes after the devastation caused by Storm Arwen last October, when members of the public were left without power for more than a week.

Storm Arwen was one of the worst in a generation. Electricity poles snapped and wires came down across large swathes of the country. The north-east of England, the Wye Valley, the Lake District, Aberdeenshire and Perthshire were among some of the worst-hit areas.

The analysis shows that the impact on essential services such as power, which was dramatically highlighted by Arwen, is a threat linked to flooding for the last 14 years and will continue to be to in future as climate impacts increase extreme weather events.

Since 2007, according to the analysis, there have been at least 12 instances of flooded electricity substations, in at least one case leading to power cuts that were problematic for emergency response and community resilience, and at least five instances of damage to gas pipelines due to the bridges supporting them collapsing.

Working with the NGO ClimateNode, the authors produced the data in an interactive map of storm impacts.

Bright Blue said the analysis revealed that the UK was not adequately prepared for the increasing risk posed by flooding as the climate changes.

Particular areas of concern are:

Urban drainage: heavy rainfall puts drainage and sewerage infrastructure under strain, even exceeding their limits, and contributing to flooding in some cases.

Hospitals: at least 15 experienced flooding causing disruption or imminent risk of disruption to patient services or hospital support services,

Schools: a least 68 schools have suffered sufficient water entering buildings to disrupt lessons, or school transport; 22 suffered at least significant damage and seven severe damage and

Care homes: nine care homes and four retirement complexes have been flooded. Major disruptions to social care included carers unable to reach elderly people in rural areas; loss of power, hot water and heating in care homes.

Helen Jackson, associate fellow at Bright Blue and the report’s author, said: “The disruption caused by Storm Arwen highlights the need to make our infrastructure resilient to extreme weather, and be more preventive and less reactive.

“Many towns and cities in the UK are seeing repeat episodes of flash flooding affecting households, businesses, and transport systems. We need to recognise this trend and do much more to ensure our urban drainage and sewer systems can cope with heavy rainfall as the climate changes. This should include limiting the spread of impermeable surfaces in our cities and ensuring basic measures like drain cleaning are not overlooked.”

The report called for the government to support and fund an ongoing programme of research to identify and monitor risks associated with extreme rainfall in urban areas. It also said government should conduct a civil resilience exercise for an extreme rainfall event in a major UK urban area, incorporating significant infrastructure failure.

Ryan Shorthouse, the chief executive of Bright Blue, said: “Flooding is one of the most serious climate-related challenges that this country is facing and will continue to face as the climate changes further in the coming years.

“The impact of flooding is already being felt deeply in communities across the UK. The UK government can and must do much more to better improve the resilience of local communities, businesses, public services, and critical infrastructure to flooding.”

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UK launches £6.5m flood research centre to combat climate change

Scientists have been given millions to launch a research and training centre intending to better understand and manage flooding which has caused havoc across the UK this month.

The £6.5million hub led by the University of Southampton will work to develop a talent pool of environmental experts invested in protecting against rising river, rainfall and sea levels.

It is also aiming to make the UK more resilient to flooding.

The FLOOD centre  includes experts from the universities of Bristol, Loughborough and Newcastle, the National Oceanography Centre, UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology and British Geological Survey, with an additional 37 partner organisations.

It will be overseen by Ivan Haigh , a professor of sea level and coastal impact at the University of Southampton.

He said: “Flooding is the most destructive natural hazard that humanity faces with nearly two billion people exposed to its risk. We need to act now and come together to improve the way we manage the large and growing threat of flooding in the UK and elsewhere in the world.

“We will train experts to best understand how to tackle the challenges of floods in future years, not only for the UK but countries globally who are facing extreme problems from climate change."

Currently one in six households in the UK are located in flood-prone areas.

The biggest drivers of flooding are increased river flow, surface runoff, storm surges and waves, said Prof Haigh, which are compounded by climate change and shifting populations.

The new hub will work to combat these growing challenges said its deputy director Dr Jennifer Brown , from the National Oceanography Centre.

She added: “This is a great opportunity to focus science research directly around the challenges faced by those managing and responding to flooding.”

Funding for the multimillion-pound centre has been provided by the  Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) together with the seven centres and other partners.

Scientists will work to improve their understand of flooding using advanced monitoring and new forms of computer modelling, artificial intelligence and machine learning to map and forecast future flooding risks.

It is supported by 37 organisations in the flood sector across the UK – from local authorities, national government, water, energy and infrastructure companies, environmental, engineering and management consultancies, regulators, finance and (re)insurance companies and charities.

News of the centre has been welcomed by the industry.

Dr Sean Longfield, a lead scientist from the Environment Agency, said it is a fantastic opportunity to train a new generation of practitioners and researchers in flood and coastal risk management.

He added: "We look forward to working closely with a diverse range of people, skills and academic perspectives over the next seven years to develop world-leading research to improve our understanding of and resilience to future flooding and coastal change."

Tyne Rivers Trust  CEO Dr Ceri Gibson said: “Having just returned from the Trent catchment, where thousands of people and businesses are suffering from flooding, I cannot think of a better time to get this exciting initiative up and going.”

Associate director Ben Murray from  ARUP said: “As recently witnessed in both global and domestic events, the flood risk challenges posed to society and the environment from a changing climate are profound, systemic and increasingly complex. Therefore training the next generation of interdisciplinary practitioners is essential.”

Geoffrey Saville, Head of Catastrophe Research at Canopius Group, said: “The focus of this centre is very much aligned with the research and development needs of the insurance industry. We hope that we can support PhD projects that can drive innovation through the application of new academic findings related to flood risk and resilience.”

Applications for students to enrol onto the centre open in February – read more here.

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Adapting to the risk of flooding - a case study

A case study on the impact of flooding and value of adaptation.

The following story has been adapted from a British Red Cross case study and comes from a collection of research that has been undertaken to understand people's experiences of flooding and the risk of future flooding. The research project brings together the experiences of people who have lived through flooding, as well as communities at greatest risk of future flooding.

“I had a phone call…. an automated message saying it was a ‘red flood alert’ and that I should press a button to get more information. I honestly thought it was a scam, so I hung up.”

Mother-of-three Leanne lives in one of the 800 homes damaged by catastrophic floods that devastated parts of Rhondda Cynon Taf in 2020. During the peak of Storm Dennis, 61 Flood Alerts, 89 Flood Warnings and two Severe Flood Warnings were in force, but none of that prepared Leanne for what was about to happen to her home.

The automated call that Leanne had received warning her of the flood was legitimate, but believing it was a scam, she chose to stay in her home. Disaster then struck later that night as water began to rise quickly through her cottage, and Leanne and her son George had to scramble to get out in time. Unfortunately, due to the extent of the damage caused by the flood, they were unable to move back into their home for six months.

Despite this, Leanne still felt luckier than others in her community, as she was eventually able to restore her home and move back in.

“One of my neighbours has packed up and left,” she says sadly. “They couldn’t bear staying in their house after what happened. I don’t feel that way. I love my house. I still love living here. I just have to take extra special measures to make sure I’m better prepared if it ever happens again.”

Leanne’s ‘extra-special’ measures include keeping paperwork and important documents upstairs and making sure keys are accessible in an emergency.

Leanne has also made further adaptations to her home, including changing the grass in her garden to pebbles to reduce the possible damage in the event of another flood. As well as this, the local council has provided her with floodgates for the front and back door, which can be attached to the door as soon as there is a risk of rising water. Leanne also now has absorption bags which can be put down the toilet to stop sewage water from coming into the house.

These adaptations, which could be relevant for many homes and community spaces at risk of flooding, have given Leanne some peace of mind, and she has since been happily living back in her cottage for over two years.

The latest Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report on impacts, adaptation and vulnerability , published in 2022, shows growing evidence of climate impacts, such as flooding and drought, that can be attributed to climate change caused by human activity. It also shows that severe weather and climate risks are expected to occur sooner and at lower warming levels than previously thought. Some communities are already finding ways to make themselves and their residents more resilient to flooding and Leanne’s story shows the importance of doing so.

Ellie Murtagh, British Red Cross UK Climate Adaptation Lead said: “Insights like those provided by Leanne help show the reality of the impact of flooding, and also what can be done. British Red Cross is working with our staff, volunteers and the communities we support to help identify climate risks and empower people to take action.”

With partners, the British Red Cross has developed a Community Resilience in Urban Areas toolkit. This was created with communities in Northern Ireland who had experienced more severe and frequent flooding. The Red Cross are also working with people in six London boroughs to mobilise local knowledge on climate risks and enable local people to be more involved in local emergency planning. Recently a community campaign in Barking and Dagenham led to the opening of a 10-hectare nature reserve , a valuable green space in an area that is in the top 10% of the UK for heatwave and extreme heat risk.

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Changing policy and practice to increase flood resilience in the UK and Belgium

A small shift in policy approach cascaded into a large-scale change in the uptake of flood resilience measures.

This benefitted communities affected by flooding, as well as government agencies, businesses and insurers.

Flooding is a big problem in the UK. In England and Wales alone, floods cause approximately £1.4 billion of damage annually, and authorities have categorised 860,000 homes and 20% of non-residential properties as high risk. Yet few people take up retrofitting measures that contribute to Property-level Flood Resilience (PFR), such as redesigning kitchens into resilient kitchens, using resilient airbricks or adding door barriers.

Improving the uptake of Property-level Flood Resilience (PFR):

To improve PFR uptake, Kingston researcher Dr Tim Harries conducted qualitative research with people living in high flood risk areas in England and analysed previous surveys involving those populations. Responses from 600 participants revealed that the decision to take up PFR is partly based on social and psychological considerations and that previous explanations, based on risk perception and cost-benefit, are insufficient.

For instance, some people were worried that their adoption of PFR would be seen by neighbours as a betrayal or suggest that the local area was unsafe. Respondents from small- and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) tended to distrust advice that went against their in-group norms or came from outsiders. The survey analysis explains why policies to encourage uptake through information dissemination about risk and PFR options have limited effect.

Dr Harries's research showed the need to rethink policies.

After the publication of his findings, the UK's Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (DEFRA) and the Environment Agency (EA) launched pilot schemes to normalise the idea of PFR in society. One scheme, called ‘Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder', was set up in 2013 to fund local projects that drew on local knowledge and wisdom; this helped 60,000 property owners adopt PFR. A DEFRA policy advisor confirmed that Dr Harries's work brought a change in direction in policy and practice, and that it helped reduce the cost, disruption and distress caused by flooding.

In 2016, Dr Harries's research prompted the establishment of a roundtable.

This roundtable involved banks, the insurance industry, engineering companies and others, encouraging them to find their own solutions to PFR uptake. The roundtable also developed a code of practice to refurbish flooded buildings by applying PFR. Sedgwick's National Technical Director and Chair of one of the roundtable's task groups said that Dr Harries's findings convinced them to "avoid simplistic solutions that would have been ineffective."

Dr Harries's work on SMEs was conducted as part of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council's SESAME project. The Policy, Strategy and Investment Research Team Lead at the Environment Agency explains how the SESAME research remains "the main source of evidence" for the EA on this matter and how that research "helped put SMEs on the government's flood risk management agenda". Dr Harries's research also persuaded insurance companies to normalise PFR by paying for it. One large insurer began to fund PFR for its customers.

There have also been advances outside the UK.

DEFRA shared lessons from Dr Harries's research with the Flanders Environment Agency in Belgium. The Agency then reduced its reliance on information campaigns and placed more emphasis on engaging the region's citizens in consultation and planning.

Just over a decade after Dr Harries began his research, the UK's and Belgium's flood resilience policies and practices have significantly changed and advances have been made in ensuring that fewer people are vulnerable to flooding.

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• Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) research reports

Case studies and lessons learned in the strategic planning of flood risk management

This research used a case study approach to assess how Lead Local Flood Authorities should approach managing flood risk through strategic planning.

Taking a strategic approach to Investment in FCERM - technical report (1.2MB) PDF

Taking a strategic approach to investment in FCERM project summary and lessons learned - technical report (1.4MB) PDF

North Yorkshire case study: Taking a strategic approach to investment in FCERM (1MB) PDF

Northamptonshire case study: Taking a strategic approach to investment in FCERM (926KB) PDF

Cornwall case study: Taking a strategic approach to investment in FCERM (905KB) PDF

If you use assistive technology (such as a screen reader) and need a version of this document in a more accessible format, please email: [email protected] . Please tell us what format you need. It will help us if you say what assistive technology you use.

Lead Local Flood Authorities (LLFAs), together with their partners, are critical to managing all sources of risk for flooding. Their success requires developing their strategic and investment skills to develop effective local strategies.

This research used a case study approach to establish capacity and skills in LLFAs. This was to:

• demonstrate how local flood risk strategies must consider risk from all sources and the partners on which local funding will rely
• explore how funding can be adjusted to reflect real and perceived appetite for risk
• test the new partnership approaches - highlighting any unintended consequences.

The project was started in 2011 and completed in 2012 at a cost of £63,896.

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How is the UK at risk of both floods and drought?

Britain’s water woes are tied to how we’ve exploited our natural resources. it’s time to let nature return to doing more of the work..

England just had its wettest 18 months on record. So the fact that the UK is still at risk of water shortages this summer is a damning indictment of how poorly managed the country’s water supplies are.

Jamie Hannaford, a hydrologist at the UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, recently told the Guardian that in the case of below-average rainfall and high temperatures, reservoir stocks and river flows can be depleted rapidly — even after wet winters. It’s happened before. At the beginning of 2010, the UK’s water situation appeared healthy after a wet summer and above-average fall and winter. Then a drought followed, which saw reservoir stocks swiftly decline. So a hosepipe ban in some regions can’t be ruled out, though Anglian Water has ruled one out for the east of England this summer.

Also Read | Awareness about air pollution-related terminologies low among urban poor in Delhi-NCR: Study

Even if our groundwater and reservoir levels remain comfortable this year, the problem is only going to get more serious. By 2050, the Environment Agency estimates that England will face a shortfall of nearly 5 billion liters of water per day as we deal with hotter days and longer drought periods at the same time as the population grows and business needs increase.

For some people, the water crisis feels very present. Last June, four schools in East Sussex were forced to close during water shortages, while sections of a river in the Lake District ran dry.

Yet as H20 supply becomes more of an issue, so too will an oversupply of the wet stuff. The number of people in the UK significantly at risk of flooding is projected to increase 61% by 2050 if global temperatures rise by 2C as storms become more severe and sea levels rise.

Also Read | Weather Bee | How strong is the current El Niño cycle?

How is it that the UK can flip-flop so dramatically between surplus and drought?

A large part of the reason is that we’ve altered our land so that water gushes quickly through the landscape and out to sea, rather than being stored in wetlands, rivers and aquifers. Rivers have been straightened and channelized. Vast swathes of wetland have been drained for grazing and agriculture. Absorbent natural environments have been replaced with slick surfaces — car parks, patios, paving stones — that contribute to the fast flow of water into aging sewers. The result is more flooding and less stored water.

Of course, England and Wales’ unique system of privatized water companies doesn’t help matters. These water monopolies have been accused of neglecting much-needed infrastructure investments so that they can pay their shareholders large dividends. The result is that an average of 113 liters of water per property per day is lost to leaks, and Britain is dealing with an epidemic of sewage spills. This is particularly galling as water bills are also being hiked.

The solution will require action from all directions. Water companies and regional water groups are finalizing long-term plans for how they’ll secure future water supplies over the next 25 years and beyond. Those plans include proposals for seven new reservoirs, five new water recycling schemes, four new desalination plants and inter-company transfers to share resources.

We’ll also need to use less water — that means companies fixing leaks at the same time as households and businesses using water more efficiently. Desalination and water recycling in particular will help Britain break free from its reliance on rainfall, but none of these actions will do anything to solve the wet season’s flooding problem.

That’s why the UK should place more emphasis on nature-based solutions for its water woes, many of which can help bolster supply, protect homes from flooding and come with a litany of other benefits including carbon sequestration and enhanced biodiversity.

Take, for example, the reintroduction of beavers to East Anglia. Five years ago, the first pair of these once-native rodents in the region for 400 years were given free reign of a 10-acre woodland stream. The results of the pilot study showed that the beaver family, now numbering 11, reduced the impact of flooding and drought by constructing dams that store an estimated 3 million liters of water in ponds. By building increasingly bigger dams each time it rained, beavers ensure that storm water flows downstream more slowly, sometimes holding it back for several months. Releasing beavers into the wild in suitable areas could bring tremendous benefits — for little human legwork. Anglian Water has provided some funding for larger enclosures on the same East Anglian estate, opening the door for other companies to follow suit in their regions.

In the UK, degraded peat emits more CO2 than all its trees sequester. But rewetting bogs does more than reduce emissions — it can also reduce flooding downstream, make water supplies more resilient and improve water quality.

It seems like this is being embraced by at least some water companies. At the British Water Annual Conference in November, United Utilities announced that it’s planning to increase expenditure on nature-based solutions from £20 million ($25.3 million) for the 2020-2025 period to more than £500 million between 2025 and 2030.

For too long now, the UK water sector has been exploiting our natural resources, rather than working with the ecosystems they rely heavily on. Now is the time to change the narrative through action and investment and help improve our climate resilience. It might also take some the sting out of rising water bills.

More From Bloomberg Opinion:

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This column does not necessarily reflect the opinion of the editorial board or Bloomberg LP and its owners.

Lara Williams is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering climate change.

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Jon Collett

April 8th, 2024, what is the value of four star ref outputs and impact case studies.

Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

What exactly is a 4 star REF output or impact case study worth? Jon Collett  runs the numbers and suggests how universities might use this information to shape submissions for REF 2029.

With the announcements in summer 2023 of the next REF, I asked myself, how much are the REF2021 impact case studies and outputs worth to universities? As any impact case study manager worth their salt would do, I decided to quantify the benefits of my work to the beneficiary! The Fast Track Impact blogpost by Simon Kerridge and Mark Reed, “ How much was an impact case study worth in the UK Research Excellence Framework? ” provided a fascinating insight into how REF2014 scores directly affected the quality related (QR) funding awarded to institutions. This post discusses my findings, based on the REF2021 data.

REF2021 and QR Funding

REF2021 is simpler than its predecessor to calculate values of 4* impact case studies and outputs. There was no impact statement, meaning that all of the impact score could be directly attributed to the case studies returned. For outputs, the requirement of 2.5 outputs per FTE returned means that we can be confident of how many publications were assessed per institution, as the possibility of a reduction at the submission level was not often used.

The data around QR funding is transparent. UKRI publish the QR allocations to HEIs on their website with granularity down to the proportion each sub-profile of each unit of assessment (UoA). However, it is only the 2023-2024 QR allocations that we are looking at in this analysis, which uses the scores from REF2021. Therefore, this article is only looking at the value of 4* impact case studies and 4* outputs based on QR allocations of a single financial year. (As an aside, QR funding in 2022-2023 also uses the REF2021 scores, and is almost identical to the 2023-2024 data) .

Calculating 4* impact case study and 4* output values

The annualised data provided by UKRI is granular and is split into the outputs, impact and environment parts for UoA, and also include data such as the number of FTE returned. As such, combined with the knowledge about number of impact case studies and outputs required per FTE returned, the annual values for 4* outputs and impact case studies for individual submissions of each UoA at each institution can be calculated as follows (where ICS stands for impact case study):

These equations will give the value of a 4* impact case study and a 4* output to that submission from an institution in the 2023-2024 financial year, so long as it received QR funding.

Relative values of 4* impact case studies and 4* outputs

Following the described method, all of the values of 4* impact case studies and 4* outputs in 2023-2024 can be calculated on a per submission and per institution level. As this method can be applied to all institutions in receipt of QR funding, we can visualise the data using a boxplot to demonstrate the distribution and skew of the values of impact case studies per UoA, as seen in Figure 1.

The first observation of the distribution of data is the wide range of values that an ICS can have in a single UoA. To understand why this is the case, the QR funding has been normalised to the 4* impact score, meaning that the value of 4* impact case studies is solely driven by the FTE returned. Therefore higher FTE means each individual impact case study will be worth more, as the number required does not proportionally increase with FTE. As an example, General Engineering (UoA12), had an order of magnitude difference in impact case study value between the institution with the most FTE returned and the one with the least.

Figure 2 further emphasises the relationship between the size of the return by FTE and the 4* impact case study value, and the differing values between panels.

As the number of outputs required by REF2021 did increase proportionally with FTE, the value of each one should therefore be relatively consistent across institutions in the same UoA. This can be seen in Figure 3, which also demonstrates the relatively constant value of each 4* output in the same REF panel.

How much is a 4* impact case study worth?

As the values of impact case studies are generally similar for UoAs within the same panel, a good approximation for value will be to look at the median values of each panel, shown in the table below (N.B. median calculated omitted values with a multiple submission letter for UoAs 3, 22, 25, 26, 28, 32, 33 and 34).

From this, a good rule of thumb would be that a 4* impact case study in Panel A and Panel B was worth around £110k in the 2023-2024 financial year, whereas for Panel C and Panel D a good approximation would be £60k over the same period. However, the large spread of values means that even looking at averages would overvalue them to small submissions and undervalue them to large UoAs. This would then have a knock-on effect to the potential strategies adopted by each institution. A far better solution would be for each institution to make their own calculations to what outputs and impact case studies are worth to them, and use the ratio between their values to inform strategy.

How much might a REF2021 impact case study be worth over the whole REF cycle? This is really hard to discuss as we are only in the second financial year of the current cycle, and there are a further six financial years to come before REF2029 results might be used for the QR funding (if this calculation is even still used). Making a (rather large) assumption that the QR funding will remain at 2022-2023 levels for the rest of this REF cycle, we can see that the median ‘rule of thumb’ (based on annual values) for 4* impact case studies will be approximately £880,000 for Panels A and B, and £480,000 for Panels C and D over the REF cycle. However, as there is such a distribution of values depending on FTE of the submission, I encourage each institution who are interested to make their own calculation.

Considering the value of a 4* impact case study over a whole REF cycle, in a 2023 article on Research Professional  Simon Kerridge estimated that from REF2029 a single 4* impact case study from a very large UoA could be worth over £2 million. The data presented here shows that over the eight financial years that REF2021 results will likely be used for the QR funding allocation, eight of the largest submissions have already achieved this value.

What else can we do with this information?

First, we should discuss what we should not do with this information: comparisons. Each submission in each institution is unique, and using information like this to compare between them is like comparing apples with pears. Each University has its own circumstances that lead to different considerations and decisions being taken, making comparisons between them is unfair.

So, what should we use this information for?

Even though I have not provided a set value for a 4* impact case study, this analysis can be used to inform strategy development as we approach REF2029. For example, if maximising income is your goal, should your institution focus time on maximising the number of 4* outputs or on developing impact case studies to try and ensure they are 4*? If you know that you are preparing the REF return in a submission with less than 100 FTE, you may choose to focus on maximising the number of 4* outputs you can return and the new impact statement (when we know more details), rather than focus on developing individual 4* impact case studies. If you are supporting a return in a submission with more than 100 FTE, you may choose to focus on maximising the chances that each of your impact case studies are 4*, as they are disproportionately much more valuable than individual outputs. Submissions of less than 40 FTE may even choose another strategy to maximise income.

Another important use I have found with this information is training and communication around REF. Being able to communicate to researchers the value of each impact case study or output, with an explanation of how the UK’s dual research funding system works, helps secure their support and cooperation for REF. I work in an Engineering Faculty so I find this particularly true when I can use numbers and values to explain the context of how their work benefits from the QR funding being awarded to the University.

Discussing impact case study evidencing requirements with other parts of my organisation is also helped with this information. For example, when in discussions with my institution’s Technology Transfer Office around requirements for impact case study evidencing, being able to provide a value around additional income the University could receive through QR funding helps generate an understanding of why I am asking for specific types of evidence for impact.

Final thoughts

This analysis is looking back at how REF2021 scores have influenced QR funding. Preparations are building to REF2029, which will have different rules emphasising inclusion and diversity, and there is no guarantee that QR funding will remain as it is after the results are published. Therefore, maybe the best strategy will be to not worry about the financial benefits of future REF, but focus on how to build the type of research excellence and culture that REF2029 is aiming to measure.

Readers can explore the underlying data for this analysis here .  This post originally appeared as, How much are REF2021 4* impact case studies and 4* outputs worth? on the Fast Track Impact Blog.

The content generated on this blog is for information purposes only. This Article gives the views and opinions of the authors and does not reflect the views and opinions of the Impact of Social Science blog (the blog), nor of the London School of Economics and Political Science.  Please review our  comments policy  if you have any concerns on posting a comment below.

Image Credit:  wutzkohphoto  on Shutterstock .

About the author

Jon Collett (he/him) leads the Knowledge Exchange and Impact team in the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Nottingham. Having been at Nottingham since 2016, he was part of the team that managed the development and evidencing of the impact case study portfolio for the General Engineering submission to REF2021, helping secure a result of 81.8% 4* in the impact sub-profile.

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