The UK Sewer Network: Perceptions of Its Condition and Role in Flood Risk

Flooding continues to be one of the top 10 “most important” disasters worldwide in terms of the numbers of people killed, the numbers of people affected, and the economic damages incurred. Of the ¥ve natural disaster categories annually monitored by the Centre for Research on the Epidemiology of Disasters (CRED), the hydrological disasters category, which includes Ÿoods, remained the most common in 2009. A total of 180 hydrological disasters were reported, accounting for more than 53% of the total natural disaster occurrences in 2009. With more than 57.3 million people affected, the hydrological disaster events of 2009 were largely caused by Ÿoods (82.8%), with the remainder (17.2%) being classi¥ed as “wet mass movements” (Vos et al., 2010).