The UK’s summer has gotten off to an exceedingly soggy start. In Lincolnshire, the residents of more than 580 homes were evacuated in mid-June after the town of Wainfleet endured the equivalent of two months’ rain in just two days. In Edinburgh and Stirling, people had to be rescued by boat on June 24 after flash floods left people stranded on top of cars and inside their homes.

This could be just a taste of things to come. In February, the Environment Agency warned that if global temperatures continue to rise in line with current trends, the UK will need to spend £1 billion a year to adequately protect homes from flooding. Currently the UK government spends just under two-thirds of that amount – £600 million. Meanwhile, the risk of flooding appears to be heading in only one direction: upwards.


While the risk of heavy flooding is becoming more frequent – the Met office logged 17 record-breaking rainfall months since 1910, with nine of them since 2000 – the UK remains reliant on flood defense systems to limit its impact. A June 2019 analysis by Flood Re, a scheme set up by insurers and the government to cut the cost of property cover for people in flood-prone areas, showed that inland flooding would cost the entire country almost three times more on an annual basis without defences – £1.8bn rather than £700m.

This is based on the UK's past experience with flooding. For instance, the Environment Agency said the floods caused by Storm Desmond in 2015 cost the economy about £1.6bn in England alone, a figure which could have exceeded £2.8bn if Cumbria had not upgraded its flood defences, following previous flooding in 2009 and 2005. The agency’s latest economic assessment estimates that for every £1 spent on defences, around £9 in property damages and wider impacts would be avoided.

Read next China is rapidly building a world-beating wind energy revolution China is rapidly building a world-beating wind energy revolution

On launching the Environment Agency’s new strategy, chair Emma Howard Boyd said: “The coastline has never stayed in the same place and there have always been floods.” Building high walls and barriers may not be enough to deal with flooding as climate change is increasing and accelerating the threat, she says, adding that “We need to develop consistent standards for flood and coastal resilience in England that help communities better understand their risk and give them more control about how to adapt and respond.” These standards could include sustainable drainage systems and the design of existing and new properties, in addition to traditional barriers and natural flood control techniques such as tree planting and no-till farming.

The 10 facts that prove we're in a climate emergency Environment The 10 facts that prove we're in a climate emergency


But preventing flood damage isn’t just about building bigger defences – smarter town planning will have a huge impact on the number of homes that are at risk of flooding, says Hannah Cloke, a hydrologist and physical geographer at the University of Reading. “We need to be smarter with our buildings and transport networks to ensure they are robust enough to cope as the risk of flooding becomes more worrying due to climate change,” she says. Using porous paving and green roofs, leaving room for water to flood from rivers, and building on raised stilts are all possibilities that could be considered when building close to floodplains.

The problem is the number of homes built in at-risk areas keeps going up. “We are still building on floodplains, and the pressures on housing means that considerations about increasing flood risk are not always priority,” says Cloke. About 12 per cent of the land in England is adjacent to a river or stream and these low-lying areas are more vulnerable to floods. In 2017, the government set a target to build 300,000 new homes a year by the mid-2020s, but approximately one in ten of all new homes are constructed in flood zones as there is limited space available outside of these zones. The Environment Agency warned as England’s population continues to grow, the total number of properties built on the floodplain will almost double by 2065.

“There are many places in the country which are at risk of flooding, where the possibility of flooding from rivers or the sea is very worrying,” says Cloke, who adds that low-lying lands are particularly difficult to defend in the light of changing rainfall and rising sea levels. For instance, the east Lincolnshire area has experienced at least eight major flooding incidents in the past 20 years, according to the Environment Agency. “Thinking about the possible futures of these areas, we might need to think seriously about the need to retreat.”

Read next Why not melt your clothes and turn them into plastic? Why not melt your clothes and turn them into plastic?

Some regions are looking beyond national government for protection against extreme weather. The Yorkshire city of Hull, where 98 per cent of homes are built in at-risk flooding zones, has become the first place in the UK to introduce legally-binding guidelines for planners on sustainable drainage requirements. The flood-risk planning policy, which has been jointly developed between Hull City Council and Yorkshire Water, was set up in response to devastating floods in 2007, which affected over 10,000 properties.


Elsewhere in the UK, the Environment Agency’s flood-defense strategy recognises that it will not always be able to prevent flooding and coastal change happening: “In these places, the priority will be to keep people safe and to develop resilience tools that minimise the impacts of flooding or coastal change and to aid recovery after an incident.” But with over 5m people in England at risk from flooding and coastal erosion, this ultimately also means supporting individuals and communities to move from an affected area.

For Cloke, this underscores the need for more joined-up action when it comes to flooding. “We need to learn to live with flooding. Also, we must put local people back at the heart of decision-making about flooding. If we are to deal with this growing problem we all have to work together,” she says.

More great stories from WIRED

💰 Facebook's Libra cryptocurrency, explained

🔍 The disturbing return of scientific racism

Read next This seabed coral farm is trying to save our reefs from extinction This seabed coral farm is trying to save our reefs from extinction

🚕 Uber has a new London rival and it's much cheaper

🤵🏻 The NHS has a plan to get more men donating blood

💻 The 10 iPadOS features that will transform your iPad


🐄 How our addiction to big beef ended up ruining the planet

📧 Never miss an awesome story again with our weekly WIRED Weekender newsletter

[newsletter type="recommends"]