The Environment Agency has warned that Britain’s flood planners must prepare for the worst on climate change. The EA predicts that climate change and population growth will double the number of properties built on the flood plain over the next five decades.
Its chairwoman, Emma Howard Boyd, said on current trends, global temperature could rise between 2C and 4C by 2100 and £1bn a year would need to be spent on flood management. Ms Howard Boyd has also stated that government policy should ensure that all publicly-funded infrastructure is resilient to flooding and coastal change by 2050.
She has called for more to be done to encourage property owners to rebuild homes after flooding in better locations and with improvements such as raised electrics, hard flooring and flood doors, rather than just “recreating what was there before”.
However, she has warned that adapting your property and recovery may not always be the best long-term solution and that the scale of the threat in some places “may be so significant” that communities would need help to “move out of harm’s way” and relocate
In a statement, Friends of the Earth said: “Smarter adaptation and resilience building – including natural flood management measures like tree-planting – is undeniably important.
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