From NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT
By Paul Homewood
h/t Ian Magness
We’re all going to drown!
The Environment Agency has today (Tuesday 17 December) published new data showing 6.3 million properties across England are based in areas at risk of flooding from one or a combination of rivers, the sea and surface water.
Using the best available data from both the Environment Agency and local authorities, the new National Assessment of Flood Risk (NaFRA), provides a single and updated picture of the current and future flood risk from rivers, the sea and surface water for England. The last update to NaFRA was in 2018.
Alongside this, the Environment Agency has also updated the National Coastal Erosion Risk Map (NCERM) for the first time since 2017. This provides the most up to date national picture of the current and future coastal erosion risk for England using the best available evidence from the National Network of Regional Coastal Monitoring Programmes.
The Environment Agency has used cutting-edge methods to create new, bespoke software to integrate detailed local flood risk models – both its own and those of local authorities – into a national picture. For the first time, both NaFRA and NCERM account for the latest UK climate projections from the Met Office.
These updated assessments provide a clearer understanding of flood risk around the country and the data will be used by the government, Environment Agency and local communities to plan for and improve flood resilience in areas at risk.
The data shows that a total of 6.3 million properties in England are in areas at risk of flooding from one or a combination of rivers, the sea and surface water.
Around 4.6 million of those properties are in areas at risk of flooding from surface water, where there is so much rainwater that drainage systems are overwhelmed, causing surface water runoff, also known as flash flooding. This is a 43% increase on the Environment Agency’s previous assessment. These changes are almost entirely due to significant improvements in the Environment Agency’s data, modelling and use of technology providing a more accurate assessment of surface water flood risk.
Around 2.4 million properties are in areas at risk of flooding from rivers and the sea. While the total number of properties at risk is not increasing, there is an 88% increase in the number of properties at the highest levels of risk, where an area has a greater than one in 30 chance of flooding in any given year. There are a variety of reasons for this change in risk, the most notable being improved data and modelling methods for assessing the likely frequency of flooding.
With climate change, the total number of properties in areas at risk from rivers and the sea or surface water could increase to around 8 million by the middle of the century – or around one in four properties.
.
Naturally the media has gone into full alarmist mode. Sky News, for instance, tried to link all of this to climate change, with emotive language like “sudden rain, crashing seas and burst river banks”.
In reality, as the EA make clear, most of the increase in risk identified is simply due to “improvements in data and modelling”.
Either way, the EA guesstimate of 6.3 million properties, one-in-five, are at risk is utterly absurd.
Their own database shows that only about 5000 homes were flooded in the y/e March 2024, a fairly average year for floods. Even in 2007, the worst year since they started keeping records, the figure was just 55,000.
And to put these numbers into perspective, the worst flooding so far this winter came from Storm Bert, which flooded 1375 properties:
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/the-latest-updates-on-storm-bert
Their previous assessment put the figure at risk 5.8 million:
But most of these were Low or Very Low Risk.
Interestingly, they have a website where you can check your own area:
https://check-long-term-flood-risk.service.gov.uk/postcode
Our house is classified as “Low Risk”, despite the fact we live on the side of a hill and have never had any remote risk of flooding, even during the Sheffield floods in 2007.
The town we live in has a population of 20,000+, and the only homes I have ever seen affected by surface water flooding are a handful at the bottom of the valley. These incidents are always caused by blocked drains and are merely inconvenient, with an inch or two of water lapping at the front door.
I suspect it is the case that our whole town is listed as “Low Risk”, on the basis that a dozen or so homes are at risk. This is because the EA work on “areas” rather than “individual properties”.
In short, the 6.3 million properties supposedly at risk is probably more in the region of 60,000.
Discover more from Watts Up With That?
Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
“They” will build houses on flood plains so what do “they” expect?
(The key is in the name.) /s.
I live in a flood plain and don’t have flood insurance. I expect possible flooding. My basement floor lies a foot below the “Base Flod Elevation”, the BFE, the 100-year flood elevation. I don’t leave anything of value on the floor. The house is on a bay, hundreds of feet away from the water flow path, and the basement walls are reinforced poured concrete. The structural wood and floors are 8 feet above the BFE The basement floor is 4 feet below grade.
The BFE was established from a 1954 flood, which happened before any flood control dams were placed on the river. Note that flood control dams don’t prevent floods, they create floods. Hopefully they direct flood waters into reservoirs that contain some of the water safely. Where we are, on a 70-mile-long river, there is only one dam upstream of us, so it doesn’t provide a lot of protection for us. There are 5 or 6 downstream before Lake Erie. We’re 110 feet elevation above Lake Erie, so we’d be building an arc if we believed major flooding from that side were to become a problem.
In short, we have a small risk of flood waters reaching the house, a very tiny risk of major flood damage, and believe the risk is worth the rewards of living on a lake. We don’t expect any government support if there is a major flood here.
This is funny stuff. I put my address through the Gov flood risk gizmo…
Now, the topography around these parts is the Thames valley with the river naturally at the lowest point and sloping hills as you move away. I live approximately 4 miles from old father Thames on a hill that has absolutely zero chance of flooding… water does tend to run downhill.
According to Gov it’s low risk
And other flood risks?
Flooding from groundwater is unlikely in this area.
Priceless.
Of course, alarmism is cyclical too. Every so often a scare gets dusted down and redeployed across the media. This morning on BBC R4 Today it was the turn of the good people of Churchill, Canada. Apparently the ice is melting, the bears will come ashore and eat the humans etc.
Not too long ago we heard…
“Press release
Lack of water presents ‘existential’ threat, says Environment Agency Chief”
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/lack-of-water-presents-existential-threat-says-environment-agency-chief
Self-contradiction is a feature and not a bug of the notional climate crisis.
Being curious I did the same thing but was told that the web page I was taken to only works for England. However there is another link to the SEPA web site for Scottish addresses so I went to that one to find that I am surrounded by probable flood risks and by 2080, due to rising sea levels and increased rain I am almost certain to be cut off from the main road by both tidal and extra rain caused floods.
I live on the bank of a tidal river and the opposite bank is lower than the one I live on. I was impressed that the web site indicates that the land opposite is more likely to flood but the rest of the assumption is I think unlikely. And now being a nearly 85 yo I guess I’m not going to find out although my grandkids might.
Strat … keep praying that your local council keeps up with stormwater drain maintenance otherwise you could experience localised flooding through overrun drains. This is commonplace here in Australia where councils increasingly spend ratepayers’ money on vanity projects and neglect maintenance and upgrading stormwater drains … both overland and underground.
As children, we used to play in nearby undeveloped woods and fields. In spring, the melting snow left standing water of varying depth behind because … the still frozen soil couldn’t absorb the water and the meltwater was never enough to support the creation of natural streams for runoff. But in a few weeks, it was gone.
When the land was developed, “storm” sewers were put in and all the meltwater as well as summer rainwater was magically carried away. And building codes required us to install sump-pumps in the basements of new homes.
Some 30 years ago, I was giving a course in Warwickshire(UK), at that time the Birmingham area, had experienced some very heavy flooding over a wide area.
During a coffee break, we got talking about the floods, when one student asked if I was in danger of being flooded. Living a 1000 ft up, I responded, “if I am, the rest of the world has a problem”. 🙂
On top of a hill, but still low risk !!
There is absolutely no risk.
It is self evident in Britain that our woes concerning sewage treatment are an indicator of what scant regard has been paid to the idea of flooding. When water utilities are not in the legislative loop and millions of immigrants demand sanitation and potable water, the utilities already have their hands full trying to keep pace with the state’s building program. Britain isn’t working. It’s not climate it’s civil engineering, stupid!
Exactly the same in Australia.
“ 6.3 million properties at risk of flooding “
It’s actually worse than we thought …
There are around 29.9 million dwellings in the UK, plus countless other buildings …
All at risk of being hit by lightning !!
From the article: “Either way, the EA guesstimate of 6.3 million properties, one-in-five, are at risk is utterly absurd.
Their own database shows that only about 5000 homes were flooded in the y/e March 2024, a fairly average year for floods. Even in 2007, the worst year since they started keeping records, the figure was just 55,000.”
I think that says it all.
Asked the Ducks a number of questions about this. Major insurance company Aviva said 1 in 13 new homes in UK have been built in flood zones over recent years. Labour has just announced plans to build 1.5m new homes.
Isn’t this odd. Just two days ago a story came out from Newsweek about flooding from sea level rise (WUWT article on Dec.16). So we can have panic on both sides of the pond. Does this look coordinated to you? Hmmm….
From the article: “Last week, heavy rainfall brought by Storm Bert saw significant river and surface water flooding across much of England.
Following Storm Bert, Storm Canall caused localised flooding impact in the South and East of the country.”
I’m a little confused about this naming of thunderstorms.
I’m assuming the names are done in alphabetical order (A to Z), so if that’s the case, on what date does the storm naming start with “A”? A couple of weeks ago? What is significant about this start date? What do they name the 27th thunderstorm?
Btw, I think naming thunderstorms is a really stupid, Climate Alarmist idea. Designating thunderstorms by the date they occur is a better way. In order to put Storm Bert in context, we are going to have to know the date it occurred anyway.
hey tom, i wounder if they will start naming rain drops. are there enough letter combinations in the alphabet?
Or naming Tornadoes!
They think if they give a thunderstorm a name, it makes it look like a hurricane.
Joe, if they use Chinese characters there might be just about enough.
To add to the confusion the storms are named by different country’s Weather services across Europe depending,I think, where the worst effects are expected.
I wondered about that, too. 🙂
The storm crosses a national boundary and gets a different name! No confusion there!
Going by dates instead of names eliminates that kind of confusion.
Tom, they aren’t naming thunderstorms, they are naming deep depressions which are expected to result in beaufort force 10 (storm) winds or stronger.
So they are trying to equate these cold fronts with hurricanes.
But, here in Sarf Lunnon, inside the M25, we had Brief Sunny Interval Maxim-Tomas this morning. No death, few motorists dazzled – but still ‘Worse than we thought!’.
Auto
I live in a road in the middle of England which is designated as ‘high risk’ of surface flooding. There has never been any flooding in living memory (I have been here for 50 years, a neighbour for 82) and after torrential rain a number of times this year, there has been no hint of flooding anywhere near the 40 houses affected. It is impossible to change the designation, even though it can affect insurance premiums, getting a mortgage and selling the house (my next door neighbour had someone pull out of a sale after finding out it was high risk). We have contacted the Environment Agency who have given no evidence of what led to this conclusion but will not change it. The local council have discussed it with us and said they can do nothing about it. They have said the best they could do was send us a letter saying that the high risk designation has nothing to do with the houses. I guess the EA has a budget and a headcount to protect and having high risks of flooding across the whole country helps.
Have you tried to get your MP involved? Although I suspect that the only way this situation might change would be to challenge the EA’s processes in court.
In the USA, there is a process.
I have removed about 300 structures, or parcels, from the flood hazard designation that kicks in the high insurance requirement.
I am doing a low end one now … about $3,000.
Complicated (new field work, varying basins, etc) modeling is way more cost.
Not that your regulators would accept it, but each of those 40 households kicking $1,500 ought to be able create a reasonable remodel/restudy.
My understanding of the Queen’s english may be substandard, but wtf is “bespoke software”?
Single user, done by a couple of people using an old version of Excel
Sure you don’t mean Multiplan or Lotus-1-2-3
The industry contrast is COTS software (commercial-off-the-shelf).
Microsoft Office is an example of COTS software. No-one knows exactly how it’s programmed but you can be assured it works properly because so many people use it, the problems would have been noticed.
Bespoke software is untried. It had better have been well tested and the programming thoroughly understood or no-one could rely on it.
Perhaps as advanced as Fortran IV?
In their mother’s basement.
Griff now comments, just as knowledgeably as ever [/s], on the ‘Daily Mail’.
Auto, provoked by a mention of Griff’s basement . . .
“bespoke software”
Software that is designed by the Environment Agency for its self use and driven by their own agenda, (scare the people fast).
All simples actually..
“Bespoke” is a word normally used by travelling tailors to describe made-in-a-day custom 3-piece suits.
Bespoke means written for one specific purpose (which is how most all software starts). Bespoke and copyright algorithms do have workable alternatives (in many cases more than one) which may be better than the stuff emulating them, but the author of a new version can claim copyright of it, for what it may be worth. How many fast counting routines need you create before being satisfied as to speed benefit from the simplest example you can find?
I have seen some needlessly elaborate and heavyweight multi-page routines in commercial use with lots of error potential which would embarrass a newly starting programming thirteen year old tackling the same problem from scratch but they work and that is all they were written to do. QED. .
The US northeast is slowly rising, because it used to have a mile of ice on it.
However, the US east coast area, including New York City, is slowly sinking, because it never had any ice on it.
The sinking is due to natural forces, such as tectonic plate movement.
The Dutch built huge dikes after 1953, because 40% of the country is up to SIX METERS below sea level, such as Rotterdam.
I lived there and saw the dikes being built. Most of them are large enough for 4-lane divided highways. Why waste good land?
You drive on them, and on one side is the water about 10 meter down, and on the other side are cities and towns, about 10 meter down, where the water table is controlled within one inch with pumping stations. The system is designed for a 10,000 year flood.
How can one *gasp* design for a 10,000 year weather event when climate is only 30 years?
/sarc
Except one slight correction. NYC most definitely was covered by ice during the last glacial maximum (LGM). Long Island is basically a terminal moraine.
New York’s Glacial Landscape
https://newyorknature.us/ice-age-new-york/
(hope I posted link correctly)
Always test your links
I’ve lived in my house for a quarter century. Never any flooding. Not even through the great flood of 2007 when the town had its water supply knocked out for a few weeks.
But the website says I have a High yearly chance of flooding from surface water.
Ridiculous.
The road is not busy, never floods and is below the driveway. The rest of the house is surrounded by we’ll drained grassy gardens. Same is true for every other house on the estate.
They may have modelled the risks, but perhaps they should have asked the insurance companies to validate their models before they released them to the public.
My insurance company suggests I get the “overland flooding” adder every year. I live on a hill. Fine print says they’re not responsible for sewer backup. You gotta wonder if their maps are based on flood potential or profit potential.
Seems more like sewage potential is the driver.
Crying wolf, and having it turn up as a Chihuahua?
In the accompanying picture that roadway is clearly elevated above the floodwater meaning they knew it was a flood plain years ago.
Excellent catch!
Until I opened the article I thought the picture was from Australia..
My son bought a “garden flat” on Sutherland Ave in Westminster, a borough in London. Several years ago the area had a sudden rainfall of 3+ inches (? maybe more). The city sewer line backed up and flooded his and MANY other flats in the area. It is a fact that the rain overwhelmed the sewer. But what isn’t understood is the root cause of the problem. The attached buildings in this part of town were built in the 1890s. Perhaps the sewers were designed and installed under-sized because of lack of knowledge about the possible rainfall amounts? Perhaps the sewers haven’t been maintained adequately?
At a personal level this was a complete disaster.
The main take away here is that Sky News UK is an entirely different beast to Sky News Australia.
Sky News Australia constantly call out the climate scam and lefty dislike of Trump:
https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/andrew-bolt/wilful-ignorance-on-climate-change-is-making-people-poorer-and-weaker/video/05c7fff3fe5bcbce4efb7a4080906301
https://www.skynews.com.au/opinion/outsiders/lefties-screeching-over-trump-being-on-the-cover-of-time-magazine-as-person-of-the-year/video/6df4334c9e1963e04e6341351a7e9807
.
Sky News UK is full-on woke, left-leaning & climate alarmist. So yes, a very different beast to Sky News Australia.
Oz is doomed as the rain isn’t gunna fall and what little does fall won’t run off and fill our dams-
Police issue emergency alert as ‘intense rainfall’ leads to flash flooding and road closures in South Burnett
Tim Flummery- forecaster extraordinaire and hot rocks entrepreneur.
Flooding … that’s what you get when you cram in more development creating more impermeable surfaces and neglect to maintain waterways and upgrade stormwater infrastructure.
The U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change projects that the planet will experience between 1 and 3 feet of sea level rise by the end of this century. But that’s a global average.E.g., sea levels on the coast at Pulaski, GA rose 7.3 inches between 2010 and 2023; in the previous 30 years, the ocean rose about 3.7 inches://www.washingtonpost.com/climate-environment/interactive/2024/us-south-sea-level-rise-climate-change/?utm_campaign=wp_post_most&utm_medium=email&utm_source=newsletter&carta-url=https%3A%2F%2Fs2.washingtonpost.com%2Fcar-ln-tr%2F4008bfe%2F6765a49d357387190b52db3b%2F596a5f389bbc0f0e09eac134%2F13%2F57%2F6765a49d357387190b52db3b