CEP to deliver a new project on local factors in managing flooding and coastal erosion risk and property flood resilience

CEP has been awarded a new project by Defra to analyse responses to a call for evidence on local factors in managing flooding and coastal erosion risk and property flood resilience

Collingwood Environmental Planning (CEP), in partnership with Middlesex Flood Hazard Research Centre (FHRC), has been commissioned by Defra to analyse responses to the Call for Evidence on Local factors in managing flood and coastal erosion risk and Property Flood Resilience (PFR) and the responses to a consultation on Amendments to the Flood Re scheme.

The Call for Evidence will explore:

• how we can strengthen our flood and coastal defence investment programme through better assessment of local circumstances, including how potential changes to the funding formula could provide further benefit to frequently flooded communities.

• PFR, which includes measures people can take to help reduce flood damage to their property and enable faster recovery (e.g. temporary flood barriers, raising plug sockets and so on), and ways of accelerating this policy and address any barriers to progress.

The Flood Re Consultation:

• Defra consulted on a number of proposals, including some which go further than Flood Re’s Quinquennial Review proposals in order to accelerate the uptake of Property Flood Resilience and better support customers and insurers to recognise these benefits.

The objective of the analysis is to enable government to implement the priorities for partnership funding and PFR as set out in the Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) policy statement.

In this project we are:

• applying a systematic approach to review stakeholder responses to Defra’s Call for Evidence and flood Re consultation including evidence submitted as part of responses; and

• delivering two workshops on the call for evidence with different sets of stakeholders to look in more depth at the evidence presented and to facilitate meaningful discussion of their implications for policy implementation.

The project started in March 2021 and is expected to run until June 2021.

For more information, please contact Paula Orr (Technical Director, CEP).

CEP evidence review informs Defra Policy Statement on flood and coastal erosion risk

Defra has just published CEP’s ‘Evidence review of the concept of flood resilience’ alongside its Policy Statement which sets out the government’s long-term ambition to create a nation more resilient to flood and coastal erosion. 

Defra published its Policy Statement on flood and coastal erosion risk on 14 July.  An ‘Evidence review of the concept of flood resilience‘ and a summary report of the outcome of the 2019 Flood and coastal erosion: call for evidence (two supporting documents prepared by Collingwood Environmental Planning) were published at the same time.

As set out in the 25 Year Environment Plan, the government intends to boost the long-term resilience of homes, businesses, infrastructure and the environment and reduce harm from natural hazards including flooding and coastal erosion. The National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England, which was laid before Parliament on 14 July, calls for transformational action on resilience and adaptation. The move towards “flood resilience” from “flood risk management” reflects the need to diversify strategies to enable people to live well in the context of floods.

To inform Defra’s Policy Statement, this project reviewed the main frameworks for defining and conceptualising flood resilience, and how such frameworks can be used in a resilience approach for Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management. 

The evidence review involved:

• A Quick Scoping Review covering the main approaches to flood resilience currently in existence and the use of metrics to implement resilience approaches

• Two evidence review and policy implementation workshops involving FCERM policymakers and cross-government practitioners.

For more information please contact Paula Orr (Technical Director, CEP) or Spela Kolaric (Senior Consultant, CEP).

CEP at Flood & Coast 2019 conference

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross (CEP) a panel member at the 2019 Flood and Coast conference.

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross will be presenting, on 18 June 2019, a short paper on community resilience to flooding at the 2019 Conference panel session Climate change - how do we overcome the physical, political & societal barriers to meet the challenge.  The other members of the panel are:  

• Andrew Eden, National lead - climate adaptation & resilience, Environment Agency

• Craig Jones, Director, Circular Ecology

• Janet Taylor, Chair, Lune Valley Flood Forum

• Andrew Russell, Committee for Climate Change

• Jonathan Farr, Policy, Water Aid

Convened by the Environment Agency, the Flood & Coast conference 2019 is a unique event that advances the debate about flood and coast erosion risk, resilience and response between government bodies and local authorities with business, major infrastructure and asset managers, as well as affected communities. 

For more information please contact Dr Clare Twigger-Ross (Technical Director).

European Commission publishes report on implementation of WFD and the Floods Directive

European Commission publishes new report on the implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD) and Floods Directive, which includes research input from CEP.

The overall assessment was led by WRc and CEP were part of the team assessing the first round of implementation of the Floods Directive (FD), coordinated by Milieu. The full report was published by the Commission last week.

The report provides an overview of the first Flood Risk Management Plans (FRMPs) produced by EU Member States and reported to the European Commission under the FD. The report focuses on progress so far and is accompanied by a series of Commission Staff Working Documents with both EU overviews and individual Member State assessments.

The FD, introduced in 2007 in response to the large floods across Europe in 2002 sets a framework for reducing risk of flood damage. The growing uncertainties surrounding flood risk management require continuous monitoring and adjustment of practices to ensure the lowest possible damages.

For more information please contact Paula Orr (Technical Director).

New report by CEP on community resilience

NEW REPORT BY CEP EVALUATES A PILOT ON DEVELOPING COMMUNITY RESILIENCE IN CORNWALL

CEP‘s evaluation of Phase 1 of the Communities Prepared project has recently been published by Groundwork South.  Funded by the Big Lottery Reaching Communities Fund to support community resilience across the country, the project aims to help community groups to be better able to respond to, and recover from, flooding and other emergencies.  The pilot phase ran from February 2016 to February 2018 and was implemented by Groundwork South in partnership with Cornwall Community Flood Forum and Cornwall College and supported by national organisations like the Environment Agency.  

The aim of the pilot phase was to test the Community Resilience Toolkit prepared by Cornwall Community Flood Forum following the floods in Cornwall in 2010. CEP was commissioned to design and carry out a process and impact evaluation of the pilot across its two-year lifetime, drawing on information gathered from communities and stakeholders to provide learning which can be used in the Phase 2 application.

The evaluation report can be found at: Communities Prepared Pilot Evaluation

For more information contact Paula Orr (Technical Director)

CEP presents at first ESRC CASCADE-NET seminar series

Clare Twigger-Ross to present at new ESRC seminar series

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross is presenting on the tension between consultation/participation and engagement with social learning in the context of flooding at the first seminar in the ESRC Seminar Series: CASCADE-NET: Civil Society’s agency and extreme weather events: dichotomies in theory and practice http://www.cascade-net.com/ .  It is on Wednesday 18th October at University of West of England, Bristol.

Clare Twigger-Ross at Flood Management Conference

CEP's Dr Clare Twigger-Ross presented at the 7th International Conference on Flood Management in Leeds

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross presented a paper at the 7th International Conference on Flood Management, Leeds on 6th September: Catalysts for transformative resilience to flooding? The role of community volunteers.

The paper was part of a special session on Local Scale Approaches to community flood resilience chaired by Dr. Jessica Lamond (University of the West of England) and co-authored with Paula Orr, Katya Brooks and Rolands Sadauskis, and drew on data collected for the Defra Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder (FRCP) evaluation (report can be found here).  The slides from the session can be found here.

CEP's work on enhancing ex-post evaluation published by Defra

CEP's work on enhancing ex-post evaluation of FCERM plans and schemes published by Defra

The Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs commissioned CEP, with our partners HR Wallingford, Middlesex University and Ruth Johnston, to investigate the practice of, and barriers to, the ex-post evaluation of Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM) plans and schemes.

Phase 1 of the project reviewed the extent to which ex-post evaluation is undertaken, highlighting examples of good practice and considering how evaluation practice could be improved. Phase 2 of the work developed case studies providing Defra with evidence to inform possible approaches to ex-post evaluation of FCERM plans and schemes.

The project's final report for Phase 1: Enhancing ex-post evaluation of flood and coastal erosion risk management plans and schemes' and  Phase 2: Case Study report are now available online.