Flood resilience for UK infrastructure

Flood resilience for UK infrastructure

CIRIA welcomes two reports into the state of critical infrastructure in the UK, written by the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and the Council for Science and Technology (CST).

The reports recommend the appointment of a lead body to oversee the protection and resilience of national infrastructure, one which would work closely with the newly-formed Natural Hazards Team to deliver a clear and consistent vision for future requirements in particular for building with increased resilience to natural hazards such as flooding.

Following the Pitt Review in 2008 and building on previous work, CIRIA, working with Arup as research contractor, is leading a collaborative project - Flood resilience and resistance for critical infrastructure (RP913) -along with the Environment Agency, Network Rail, Highways Agency, and other leading infrastructure asset owners and stakeholders to increase the resilience of the UK’s critical infrastructure assets to flood risk.

The project team of CIRIA and Arup engaged in an extensive consultation phase, involving a workshop and online questionnaire survey with input from the UK’s leading infrastructure asset owners and operators. The findings of this consultation are currently being reviewed and incorporated with an extensive literature review of both national and international practice to formulate a final project report, due for publication in Autumn 2009.

Interim findings from the CIRIA project were shared with key representatives for the ICE State of the Nation enquiry, which in turn has fed into the CST report. Key findings and recommendations from CIRIA are entitled as follows:

1. Governance, regulation and funding
2. Control and mitigation of flood risk (definitions and standards)
3. Flood risk information gaps and assessment methods
4. Skills and resources
5. Cross sector collaboration and knowledge sharing

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