ABSTRACT
This chapter aims to review the evidence for changes in flood risk in the UK, and to consider societal responses to flood risk. It focuses on fluvial flooding, although brief consideration will be given to other causes of flooding, such as pluvial and groundwater-driven flood events. The chapter examines the evidence for climate-driven change, rather than more direct influences such as land-use or land-cover change that have been reviewed more comprehensively elsewhere. Arguably the most prominent contemporary concern relating to flood risk is the potential influence of anthropogenic climate change. The analyses of extreme rainfall and flooding discussed above seek to identify trends and, commonly, to interpret them and attribute them in the context of climate change. A nationwide assessment of trends in river flooding was first carried out as part of research for the Flood Estimation Handbook, the UK’s national standard methodology for flood frequency estimation.
