Relevance
Over 2.7 million properties in England are at risk of flooding. The heavy and/or prolonged rainfall that drives flooding is projected to increase in the future due to climate change, which will significantly increase future flood risk. Some regions of West Yorkshire are particularly at risk and have experienced major costly and disruptive floods in recent years. For example, flooding in Leeds in December 2015 that damaged over 3,300 private properties and businesses and the six major floods between 2015 and 2020 in the Calder Valley, where many properties were repeatedly flooded.
The impacts of flood events can be reduced by early warning and preparedness. The challenges associated with achieving this are twofold. Firstly, creating accurate flood forecasts – although weather forecasts have improved significantly in the last decade, surface water flooding, which generally occurs due to intense, highly localised summertime rainfall, is hard to forecast accurately enough to provide useful advanced warning. Secondly, there are challenges around how to communicate flood risk and uncertainty effectively to different community groups and how to ensure this information is consistent and complementary to the severe weather and flood warnings that are issued nationally.
Aim
The overall aim of this work package is to develop a set of recommendations for how to improve FEWS provision in the West Yorkshire area for at risk communities, Local Authorities and other local organisations.
Activities
We will:
- Document the state-of-the-art in FEWS capability and communication methods internationally, nationally and locally within West Yorkshire.
- Through consultation, determine the key needs and appropriate communication routes for FEWSs for at risk communities and businesses in West Yorkshire and local organisations such as the Local Lead Flood Authorities (LLFAs) and other West Yorkshire FLIP members.
- Feed into on-going projects with the Met Office, Flood Forecasting Centre and Environment Agency that are working to improve national flood forecast provision and warning communication.
- Make recommendations for improvements to existing national and local FEWS capability and how to ensure national and local information remains consistent and integrated.
Team
Project leads – Prof. Cathryn Birch and Dr. Sarah Jenkins, University of Leeds
Impact translation fellow – Dr. Sam Ramsden
Links
This Work Package will build on iCASP’s Enhanced Surface Water Flood Forecasting project and make use of expertise and the local network provided by iCASP and the West Yorkshire Flood Innovation Programme (FLIP).
The project staff are actively involved in current projects to improve national and regional flood provision.
These include the Environment Agency’s Surface Water Incident Management Strategic Overview Role Scoping Project and the Surface Water Flood Forecasting Improvement Project (SWFFIP), led by the Environment Agency, Met Office and Flood Forecasting Centre.
These connections will allow a two-way exchange of ideas for regional Flood Early Warning System provision and a route to influence national provision.