ABSTRACT
As a most vital resource, water is particularly affected by climate change impacts; the risk of both flooding and drought is increased by climate change, although other changes (demographic, development) also affect flood risk, such as the increased ‘sealing’ of soil under impermeable surfaces. While the institutional basis of drainage and flood management is long established, it has been fragmented; institutional reform is now aiming to simplify flood management. Research undertaken under the Foresight Future Flooding Project (Evans et al., 2004, see also Section 6.6), in response to flood events, used a scenarios-based approach to projecting the severity and likelihood of UK flood events during the twenty-first century under changing climates. This research provided much of the evidence base for the new government strategy for flood-risk management in England, Making Space for Water (Defra, 2005, see also Section 11.3.3 below and Table 11.2). Awareness of climate change has accelerated action to move towards better management of flood risk, and its integration with spatial planning. Flooding types are distinguished as fluvial (from rivers), from land (surface-water run-off or pluvial flooding), from water bodies including groundwater and from the sea. The DCLG (2006c, p. 18) states that it is difficult to define precisely what constitutes a flood-risk area, ‘as floods with similar probability may result from different combinations of weather, sources, rainfall patterns, local topography and patterns of development’.
