CEP undertaking evaluation of Property Flood Resilience Grant Scheme for Defra

CEP are leading on a new project for Defra to carry out a process and impact evaluation of the Property Flood Resilience (PFR) grant scheme

CEP, in partnership with University of the West of England (UWE) Bristol and Flood Hazard Research Centre (FHRC), Middlesex University, has been awarded a project by DEFRA to carry out a process and impact evaluation of the Property Flood Resilience (PFR) repair scheme to help understand the effect of the scheme on resilience in flood affected council areas.

The PFR repair scheme is activated following severe weather events that impact multiple local authorities, lastly in February 2020 and November 2019. All eligible flooded properties have access to grants through the PFR scheme. To be eligible a council area has to have more than 25 properties flooded.

This project will evaluate how the PFR repair scheme’s delivery process has worked and the impact this has had in areas affected by flooding. The two key questions are:

• How effective are processes employed for delivering the Government Property Flooding Resilience (PFR) repair schemes in 2019 and 2020?

  • What benefits has the scheme delivered?

  • What improvements (if any) could be made?

• What is the impact of the scheme in council areas that have received PFR grants and have flooded since?

  • In these areas, did the resilience measures make a measurable difference and if so, how

  • How does this contrast with areas where flooding has occurred, but PFR has not been utilised?

  • Has the scheme contributed to increase the uptake of PFR?

The project started in August 2021 and will run until August 2022.

For more information, please contact Clare Twigger- Ross (Project Director, CEP) or Rolands Sadauskis (Project manager, CEP).

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 successfully hosted Communities and FCERM workshop

CEP successfully facilitated a workshop as part of a project to develop a Communities and FCERM R&D Framework

CEP recently facilitated a one day workshop with a range of key stakeholders to consult and engage them in the development of a Communities and FCERM R&D framework. The workshop, organised by the Environment Agency, successfully took place in London on Wednesday 11th March 2020 before government recommendations around COVID-19 came into place.

CEP, in partnership with Flood Hazard Research Centre (FHRC) Middlesex University and HR Wallingford (HRW), have been commissioned by the Environment Agency (EA) to develop a Communities and FCERM R&D Framework. The primary aim of the project is to identify the main research gaps in the area of FCERM through a detailed review of the current science.

Information about the Communities and FCERM R&D framework project can be found here.

For more information, please contact Dr Clare Twigger-Ross (Project Director) or Rolands Sadauskis (Project Coordinator).

CEP reviewing evidence on flood resilience for Defra

CEP is leading an evidence review of flood resilience for Defra and the Environment Agency.

CEP is leading a project to provide an evidence review of flood resilience for Defra and the Environment Agency. The project was commissioned in summer 2019 and is expected to conclude in spring 2020. CEP’s consortium partners are the Flood Hazard Research Centre at Middlesex University and HaskoningDHV UK Ltd.

The government’s 25 Year Environment Plan includes a goal to reduce the risk of harm to people, the environment and the economy from natural hazards including flooding and coastal erosion. “Boosting the long-term resilience of our homes, businesses and infrastructure” is one of the measures by which this will be achieved. Resilience is also central to the Environment Agency’s draft National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England which emphasises the need for ‘climate resilient places’.

The overall objective of the project is to review the concept of flood resilience and how it can be used in a resilience framework for managing flood and coastal erosion risks in England. 

So far the project has:

• Developed evidence from peer-reviewed and grey literature on the main approaches to flood resilience that are currently in use.

• Provided a summary of the responses to Defra’s ‘Call for Evidence on Flooding and Coastal Erosion’ to inform the Government’s policy on flood and coastal erosion resilience.

• Supported engagement of flood risk management policy-makers and practitioners in exploring how resilience concepts, frameworks and metrics could best be implemented in policy and how to address any barriers to implementation.

• Facilitated cross-Government consideration of the different concepts of resilience currently in use, how these could best be aligned and what targets and metrics could be used.  

The results of the research will be published by Defra later this year.

For more information please contact CEP’s Paula Orr (Project Director) or Spela Kolaric (Project Coordinator) for more information.

CEP to research how to measure recovery from extreme weather events

CEP HAS RECENTLY BEEN AWARDED A NEW PROJECT TO HELP CLIMATEXCHANGE UNDERSTAND HOW TO MEASURE RECOVERY FROM EXTREME WEATHER EVENTS .

ClimateXchange has commissioned Collingwood Environmental Planning (CEP), in partnership with the University of Strathclyde, to undertake research to help develop an approach to monitoring recovery from extreme weather events, including flooding, storms, drought, extreme cold in winter and above normal heat in summer.  The research will look at possible targets and indicators, which should be relevant to broader resilience frameworks and strategies in Scotland.  The main aim of the research is to enable a common understanding of climate resilience and the critical components in planning for local and national recovery from extreme weather.  

This research will involve an evidence review of recovery monitoring systems used elsewhere, identification and review of potential datasets that could be used to measure recovery from extreme weather events, and consideration of how monitoring recovery from extreme weather events can link and contribute to Scotland’s National Performance Framework, the Scottish Climate Change Adaptation Programme and the Preparing Scotland guidance for getting ready for and dealing with emergencies.

The project began in January and will come to a close at the end of March 2020.

For more information please contact CEP’s Paula Orr (Technical Director) or Dr Sian Morse-Jones (Principal Consultant).

New EA project to develop a Communities and FCERM R&D Framework

CEP HAS BEEN COMMISSIONED TO DEVELOP A COMMUNITIES AND FCERM R&D FRAMEWORK

CEP, in partnership with Flood Hazard Research Centre (FHRC) Middlesex University and HR Wallingford (HRW), have been commissioned by the Environment Agency (EA) to develop a Communities and FCERM R&D Framework. The primary aim of the project is to identify the main research gaps in the area of FCERM through a detailed review of the current science.

The review process is being supplemented with interviews and further workshops with key stakeholders. The outputs from this project will help to set-out a roadmap for delivering and funding EA projects to fill these gaps. The project began in October and will come to a close at the end of 2020.

For more information please contact CEP’s Clare Twigger-Ross, the Project Manager, or Rolands Sadauskis, the Project Coordinator.

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 participating in Austria climate change adaptation workshop

CEP participating in workshop on climate change adaptation and natural hazards for the Austrian Climate Research Programme

On 5th July Dr Clare Twigger-Ross will be participating in a project workshop for Climate Change Adaptation and Protection from Natural Hazards: capacity building for people with a migration background in Austria.  The project is part of the 8th Call Austrian Climate Research Programme and runs from 2016 for 34 months.  It is led by the University of Natural Resource and Life Sciences, Vienna. 

The project aims to explore the potential vulnerability and capacity of migrant groups in the context of Climate Change using a cross-analysis of several embedded case studies in Austria.  Clare has been invited to share her experience in the area of flooding and climate change resilience, with a specific focus on approaches to researching groups who may be more vulnerable to negative impacts because of social factors.

CEP investigates the process of resilient repair after flooding

CEP part of a team examining the facilitators and barriers to resilient repair measures for properties following flood events

CEP are part of a team led by University of West England, with Kingston University and Cunningham Lindsey on examining the uptake of resilient repair following flood events in the UK, for Defra. The aim of the project is to investigate the barriers for households and businesses in installing resilient repair measures, and to examine how the government could encourage greater uptake of such measures. A key part of the project will be collecting data from both residents and professionals on the barriers and facilitators to installing resilient repair. After a flood event, resilient repair is a category of flood resilience measures that can be carried out during reinstatement to prevent future physical damage to a property.

CEP will assist in the  development of a quick scoping review on what is already known about the facilitators and barriers to resilient repair. CEP will also assist in conducting workshops with experts and key stakeholders, to further examine what consensus there is on how best practice resilient repair can be achieved.

The project will run from November 2017 to July 2018. For more information on the project, please contact Dr Clare Twigger-Ross or Izzy Cotton.

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 at CECAN Workshop on increasing the impact of policy evaluation

CEP at CECAN Workshop on increasing the impact of policy evaluation

CEP participated in a workshop organised by CECAN to explore how evaluation practice can become more impactful in the future. The workshop 'Increasing Impact of Policy Evaluation in Complex Settings – What Works?' took place on 5 September 2017 in London. It sought to:

1. share recent experience on successful evaluation impact in complex nexus policy areas
2. share expertise in maximising the impact of evaluation in these policy settings
3. generate practical recommendations for policymakers, analysts and evaluators
4. generate ideas for focussing future R&D in this area
5. produce a policy note on how evaluation practice can become more impactful in future

CEP's  Dr Clare Twigger-Ross discussed the impact of CEP's evaluation of Defra's Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder.

Further details of the workshop can be found here.

CEP's evaluation of low cost resilience to flooding project published by Defra

Photo credit: michael kooiman on Flickr (CC BY-SA 2.0)

CEP's evaluation of a small-scale project trialing low cost resilience to flooding was published by Defra

CEP carried out an independent evaluation of a small-scale demonstration project designed to test an innovative approach to flood repairable systems in a flood-prone area. The demonstration was carried out in Tewkesbury as part of the project 'Supporting the uptake of low cost resilience for properties at risk of flooding'. The project, led by by the University of the West of England,  involved a number of partners and worked with the local Property Support Network – builders, retailers, loss adjusters, local authorities, and insurers – to support take-up of these approaches.  

The project identifies barriers and proposes solutions to promote low cost approaches that would make properties at risk of flooding more resilient to damage from flood waters. The project's final report, technical annex and CEP's evaluation report (appendix to the final report) are available here.

CEP's review of Flood Awareness Wales published

Photo credit: 'Flooded Esplanade' by Ben Salter on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

Natural Resources Wales published CEP's review of Flood Awareness Wales

CEP was commissioned by Natural Resources Wales (NRW) to carry out a review of the community engagement element of the Flood Awareness Wales (FAW) programme.

The FAW programme was developed by Welsh Government and Environment Agency Wales (now NRW) in 2010 to contribute to the delivery of flood and coastal erosion risk management objectives by raising awareness and increasing the preparedness of communities.

The main aims of the evaluation were to assess the effectiveness of current approaches to community engagement; and to review local, national and international best practice in order to provide evidence and recommendations for future practice to increase community flood resilience in Wales. 

The Executive Summary, presenting the findings of the evidence review, is available on NRW's website. For a full copy of the report please email NRW at: Floodawareness.wales@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

CEP at FloodRISK Conference 2016

Photo credit: Flooded River Severn by muffinn on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP at European Conference on Flood Risk Management

CEP has contributed two papers to FloodRisk 2016, the 3rd European Conference on Flood Risk Management, which will be shown in Lyon on 19 and 20 October.  The papers are co-authored by Clare Twigger-Ross, Paula Orr, Katya Brooks and Rolands Sadauskis and draw on evidence from CEP’s evaluation of the Department of Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra) Flood resilience Community Pathfinders (2013-15).

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross’s presentation on ‘Citizen Involvement in Flood Risk Government: Flood groups and networks’ will be shown on Wednesday 19 October, as part of the session on Disaster Management and Recovery.  A presentation by Paula Orr entitled ‘Pieces of kit are not enough: Flood infrastructure and community resilience’ will be shown on Thursday 20 October, in the session on Vulnerability and Societal Resilience.

After the conference, the presentations will be available on CEP’s website.

CEP'S CLARE TWIGGER-ROSS PRESENTING AT IAPS CONFERENCE ON PEOPLE-ENVIRONMENT STUDIES

Photo credit: 'Wheat' by Dag Terje Filip Endresen on Flickr (CC BY 2.0)

CEP'S CLARE TWIGGER-ROSS PRESENTING AT IAPS CONFERENCE on People-Environment STUDIEs

CEP's Dr Clare Twigger-Ross will be presenting at the 24th IAPS conference (International Association for People-Environment Studies). It is hosted by the Environmental Psychology Research Groups at Lund University and the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences in southern Sweden and takes place from 27th June - 1st July in Lund and Alnarp.   

The conference will address the study of the interrelations between the social, the built and the natural environment, and the impacts on them. The conference theme turns the spotlight on to what is at the core of the bigger issues related to global sustainability – the actions and everyday lives of humans. 

Clare will be presenting at the following sessions, on Tuesday 28 and Wednesday 29, drawing from the findings of two of CEP's recent projects to discuss:

• Unpacking the relationships between green spaces and social cohesion: a brief overview of evidence and practice across the EU (Project insights: The health and social benefits of nature and biodiversity protection)
• Developing frameworks for understanding and evaluating community resilience to flood risk: evidence from the UK (Project insights: Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder evaluation)

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross at Winter Flood Project findings launch event

Image 'The Somerset Levels' by Nick (CC BY 2.0)

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross to participate in panel discussion on floods, adaptation and community

Dr Clare Twigger-Ross will take part in a panel discussion in an event launching the findings for the Winter Floods Project, undertaken at the Exeter University.

The Winter Floods Project examined how perceptions of the problems and solutions evolved during the year following the floods that occurred over the winter of 2013/14, in order to better understand how longer term policy responses occurs at local and national scales.  The project also investigated individual and community resilience after flood events to identify how flood events impact well-being and quality of life.

The event will present the project’s key findings, followed by a panel discussion on the theme of 'floods, adaptation, and community' with academic and policy contributors. 

The event will take place on 8th June 2016 at the Royal Geographical Society, London between 13:30 and 17:30.

If you would like to attend please use this link to register for a place.