Infrastructure protectionUsing natural, engineering solutions to help U.K. address extreme weather events
The United Kingdom is seeing increased seasonal flood damage not only from coastal and river surges, but from rising groundwater as well. The scale and unpredictability of these events in recent years, while devastating, can also serve as a helpful mirror of future climate change and its predicted effects in the longer term. Experts say that natural solutions, such as reforestation, to improve flood defenses and attempts to keep water in place may provide both short and long term solutions.
Following reports such as the 2013URS plan – titled Payments for Ecosystem Services: A Best Practice Guide — on behalf of the U.K. Department for Environment, Food & Rural Affairs (DEFRA), and more recent appeals, a broader picture of U.K. climate change preparation on a local scale is forming, and it points toward not just engineered solutions, but also natural ones.
As URS operations director Jon Robinson writes in the Telegraph, much of the United Kingdom is seeing increased seasonal flood damage not only from coastal and river surges, but from rising groundwater as well. The scale and unpredictability of these events in recent years, while devastating, can also serve as a helpful mirror of future climate change and its predicted effects in the longer term — allowing researchers such as Robinson the chance to plan accordingly.
In light of this, Robinson urges that naturally improved flood defenses and attempts to keep water in place mayt also provide both short and long term solutions. He cites simple, ecological steps such as reforestation within the “catchment areas” of major river systems and the application of woodlands instead of grasslands in open areas to be feasible — the latter a measure he cites to be around sixty times better at absorbing rainfall.
Additionally, financial actions can be taken to incentivize these steps. He mentions the concept of “natural capital valuation” which involves establishing a federal price on aspects of nature that would help preserve the environment and ecosystem. On top of this, farmers could be compensated in advance for allowing lands to act as temporary reservoirs or to be reforested for water retention.
Robinson, however, urges that in order for such wide scale coordination to occur, the collaboration of group such as DEFRA, the Environment Agency, the Treasury, the Forestry Commission, and the Department for Communities and Local Government, in addition to private sector groups such as the National Farmers Union and Woodland Trust.
“We need to rethink binary positions of hard-engineered defenses versus soft natural flood risk management. Innovative combinations of both are required to tackle the challenges that lie ahead,” he said.
