Engineers and the Environment – natural allies in our fight for a more flood resilient nation

Posted by: John, Posted on:10 April 2018

In January, the Prime Minister launched the Government’s new national 25 year environment plan – quite a moment for those of us who’ve worked our whole careers in the environmental field. While the initial media interest has been in supermarket plastics and single use coffee cups, which are, of course, important features, the plan is far more fundamental and comprehensive than that.

What the plan does for the first time is to recognise that the environment underpins most facets of our modern life, from our health and wellbeing, the wealth of the nation, to our ability to improve the nation’s resilience to climate change. Without a healthy and vibrant environment all of these facets will suffer.

Flood resilience is a common thread running through the plan. There are explicit references to enhancing the use of natural flood management, improving sustainable drainage, increasing the flood resilience of the places we live and work, built environment and taking the opportunity to reform farming subsidies to help support environmental enhancement including climate resilience.

This is fantastic news. Putting the environment at the heart of flood resilience interventions has to be the right way forward. Click here to read more