Every year flooding affects communities around the UK. The Chartered Institute for Water and Environmental Management recently contended that although there has been expert agreement for many years about reforms, policy change has been slow. In part, this is due to the complex governance system within which flooding occurs. In this article, Professor Graham Haughton and Professor Iain White (University of Waikato) suggest a simple new target to help to break this deadlock.

• A clear target to require all towns and cities at risk from flooding to improve water retention by 10%, should place an initial emphasis on large developments such as master-planned communities and implementing measures on publicly-owned land.
• This policy will focus on reducing the peak water flows that can overwhelm rivers and drainage systems.
• We need to coordinate and combine ways of retaining and slowing down water, not just where problems manifest themselves through flood events but also up-stream within catchments (river basins).