This report comes at just the right time when the debate about natural flood risk management is in full swing but also the Brexit agenda of what form Government support for farming will look like in the post Brexit world. It cuts to the heart of the discussion looking at the way tax payers money is invested in farming (land use management) and flood prevention. RE
Green Alliance A New report from the Green Alliance ‘Smarter flood risk management in England – Investing in resilient catchments’ couldn’t be more timely. It suggests that England’s flood strategy is failing, the think tank is warning that a new approach urgently needed from government to protect communities and stop costs spiralling. The study says that public spending on flood risk in England is skewed towards dealing with the after effects of floods, rather than on preventing them, and the misery and damage they cause. A failure to account for the impacts of different forms of land management on flood risk is resulting in millions of pounds in agricultural subsidy being spent in ways that may actually increase vulnerability to flooding.
Commenting on the report, Angela Francis, senior economist at Green Alliance, said: “This analysis reveals how we are spending hundreds of millions of pounds of public money in ways that are perverse. Just by allocating current funding more rationally the government could reduce the burden on the public purse, save vulnerable communities from the misery of flooding, and increase the health of our natural environment.”
“We welcome the government’s announcement of £15 million of additional funding for natural flood management, and urge that it be used as an innovation fund to support catchment scale trials of these approaches. This is the only way we can understand how cost effective it could be in preventing and managing floods.”
Download the report at http://www.green-alliance.org.uk/resources/Smarter_flood_management.pdf