Guardian ‘Figures show 62% cut to R&D budget to improve forecasting and defences over seven years, despite calls for such evidence in the wake of winter flooding. Funding for “vital” research to improve flood forecasts, warnings and defences has been slashed by almost two-thirds since 2009, figures obtained by the Guardian show. The annual funding for flood research and development, which the government has not published, has fallen from £4.89m, in 2008-09 to £1.85m in 2015-16, a drop of 62%. “The government says evidence is required but they have cut the R&D [research and development] budget that could have provided it,” said Prof Edmund Penning-Rowsell, at the Flood Hazard Research Centre at Middlesex University and a member of a group that advises the government on its flood R&D programme, which he also previously chaired.’
March 16, 2016