Warning of 'significant' flood risk

Belfast Telegraph: More than half a million homes and businesses will be at "significant" risk of flooding in the future without more investment in flood defences, the Government's advisers on climate change have warned.

Floods which have had a devastating impact in the past few weeks are likely to become more common in the future as the climate changes and increases the chances of extreme weather, Lord Krebs of the Committee on Climate Change said.

But a funding gap of almost £1 billion is opening up between what is needed to keep properties protected in the face of climate change and what is being spent over the next few years.

At the same time an increasing number of homes and businesses are being built on the flood plain, with 40,000 properties constructed without community flood defences in the past decade - putting them at a significant risk of flooding....

Flooded overpass in Belfast, shot by Albert Bridge, Wikimedia Commons via Geograph UK, under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license