Brad Allen in the edie.net newsroom: The ever-increasing threat of flooding cannot be fully defended, so the UK must adopt a new approach where we learn to 'live with water', argues a new white paper from built environment science centre BRE.BRE welcomed the Treasury's £2.3 billion investment in flood defences, but says that a new approach to dealing with flooding is required whereby buildings are made flood-resilient. Scroll down for full report.
BRE argues that flooding is inevitable as climate change and urbanisation have put more than 5.2 million homes in England at risk of flooding. Annual costs of flood damage are currently at least £1.1 billion and are expected to rise in coming years.
Across Europe, flooding has been traditionally managed by large-scale engineering solutions protecting conurbations from obvious risks such as rivers and the sea. However floods are now occurring within these defences requiring buildings to be adapted appropriately
BRE Centre for Resilience director Dr Stephen Garvin said: "Our urban environment continues to grow apace - surface water management needs to be embedded in the new developments we construct with things like sustainable urban drainage systems, green roofs to decrease water run off as well as localised flood resilient technologies."…
Photo of 2007 flood in Oxford by John Barker John Barker, Wikimedia Commons via Flickr, under the Creative Commons 2.0 license
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