News

One of the 33 women profiled to help challenge imbalances in diversity in academia is Heriot-Watt University Water Academy’s Dr. Heather Haynes. In June, the Young Academy of Engineers is launching The “Women in Academia Now' to help inspire new and early career researchers in academia.

On June 29th, we held our final Annual Assembly associated with our EPSRC 3 year funding.   The event brought together those working across a spectrum of roles and organisations in Flood Risk Management.  The event aimed to provide opportunities for those working in different disciplines, organis

The Environment Agency have published a flood cost estimate for the winter 2013/2014 floods. This assessment found that total economic damages for England and Wales were between £1,000 million to £1,500 million, with a best estimate of £1,300 million.

The number of people estimated to be at risk from flooding in the UK is expected to rise significantly over the next two decades.  Current estimates suggest that more than five million people and two million homes and businesses are at risk from flooding. 

A six year plan to protect homes, businesses and communities from flooding has been launched by the Scottish Government.   The strategies identify a total of 42 flood protection schemes that have been proposed for action over the next five years at a total cost of £235m, aiming to protect up to 10,000 properties.

PhD Vacancy - Near real-time correction of flood forecasting using high-resolution satellite data for multi-hazard risk assessment in lowland tropical regions

Coastal erosion and flooding are global environmental and economic threats, and existing coastal defence structures are aging, exposing the communities to increased hazard.  The PhD project will focus on the numerical modelling natural beaches and coastal defence structures in order to simulate and thereby understand how these systems behave.

In the imposing setting of the House of Lords, the new SuDS Manual and BeST (Benefits of SuDS Tool) was launched by the team from

With the launch of the FCERM.net and Sniffer on-line community forum, we are calling for enthusistic members from policy, practice or research to join our team of On-line Community Champions.

The Scottish Flood Forum (SFF) is an independent, community-focussed charitable organisation that supports communities at risk of flooding to build resilience and help them prepare for a flood event.

A team of scientists at the University of Southampton, National Oceanography Centre and the British Oceanographic Data Centre has compiled a new 100-year database of coastal flooding for the UK. The database, and accompanying online tool called ‘SurgeWatch’, currently contains information of 96 large storms during this period, the highest sea levels they produced, and a description of the coastal flooding that occurred during each event.

In a recent publication based on the European Flood Awareness System researchers demonstrated that there are significant monetary benefits to be gained from implementing  continental-scale probabilistic flood forecasting system - in the order of 400 Euro for every 1 Euro invested. This work supports the wider drive to implement early warning systems at the continental or global scale to improve our resilience to natural hazards.

The organisation Responding to Climate Change have published a short article looking at how three coastal cities are taking different measures to prepare for rising sea levels. Their approaches to Flood Risk Management all take into consideration ‘Multiple Benefits’, yet each of the measures is significantly different from their counterparts’.

The Woodland for Water initiative aims to identify where planting of woodland can help to deliver water quality objectives under the EU Water Framework Directive. This has been achieved through opportunity mapping in a collaborative approach by the EA and Forest Research.

NCAR in Colorado have this month released a video highlighting their use of predictive models for wildfires and floods.

Research News is the biannual publication from the joint FCERM R&D programme*. This issue looks at how the Environment Agency will make better use of local and historic flood data and how the costs and impacts of the winter 2013 to 2014 floods is being estimated.

The NERC-funded CONVEX (CONVective EXtremes) project held a workshop on intense rainfall and flash flooding in January at The Royal Society in London. The event brought together academics and stakeholders from government and the private sector to discuss the latest understanding of UK intense rainfall and how this new knowledge might be developed into policy guidance.

A new mapping tool, Climate Just, has been developed by Climate UK and the Joseph Rowntree Foundation to show the impact of climate change in England.  The software highlights ‘hot spots’ and provides an insight into of inequalities at a local level indicating the vulner

FCERM.net will sponsor a Special Session on Flood Risk Management on May 27th at part of the IWRA XVth World Water Congress being held in Edinburgh over five days (25-29 May 2015).

A new handbook promoting good practice for channel management has been developed. Written for the flood risk management authorities, the handbook brings together over 10 years of research and practice. It aims to help with the decisions of when and how to carry out channel management for flood risk and land drainage purposes

The Blueprint for Water partnership, a coalition of organisations representing over two million members, have released a report that highlights the importance of considering a range of flood protection measures, other than dredging.  The report

On the 18th November Professor Garry Pender will take the Chair of the Institution of Civil Engineers Scottish Region. The role involves supporting the Institution in delivering knowledge, inspiration and education programmes across Scotland. Professor Pender's term will begin with an open meeting on “Flood Risk Management: from defence to social impact”

Medmerry is one of the stretches of coastline most at risk of flooding in England. It's ‘managed realignment scheme has now become the UK’s largest manmade coastal habitat flood scheme and has won ‘The Prime Minister’s Better Public Building Award’ as well as a British Construction Industry Award.

£4-5 million of Research Council funding will be made available to fund research projects understanding the interdependencies between water, energy and food security in the context of a more sustainable economy and changing environment as part of the EPSRC  - Water Energy Food Nexus Sandpit Call.

The fifth report of The Environmental Audit Committee gave a 'red' scorecard to the coalition government in three key areas, air pollution, protecting nature and preventing flooding indicating a deteriation in progress. A further seven areas were designated as 'amber' having made no progress, while there were no 'green' designations at all.

The Environment Agency have just published a Working with Natural Process research and development framework to identify and prioritise research needed to aid FRM Authorities in the delivery of sustainable Flood Risk Management. 

The remnants of Hurrican Bertha left a trail of destruction across parts of the UK this week, with surface water flooding causing hundreds of residents across the country to be evacuated, severe disruption to

A collaboration between The British Geological Survey (BGS) and Heriot-Watt University will create a new centre for Earth and Marine Science and Technology.  Based at Heriot-Watt University’s Edinburgh Campus, the Sir Charles Lyell Centre will be one of Europe's leading centres for research and expertise in the earth and marine sciences.

Understanding, predicting and modelling the impacts of Flooding From Intense Rainfall (FFIR) requires critical observations and data on floods and flood-generating processes during events as well as post-event surveys and surveys to support historical-event reconstruction by modelling.

This residential workshop for ECR's is themed towards weather, climate and natural hazards and will present an overview of model evaluation methods, statistical inference for model output, and the use of models in risk management and decision-making, with the aim of exposing participants to methods and insights available in environmental modelling and encouraging critical evaluation of the approaches and methodologies used in their own research.  Participants can expect interactive problem-solving exercises, discussion time andfacilitated sessions allowing participants to explore and understand the concepts presented by the expert lecturers. 

A project that aims to increase community resillience to flooding in communities in England has reached the end of it's first year, and is showing promising results.  . The Pathfinder project uses a framework for measuring community resilience and findings show all 13 communities have made progress in Year 1 on the interventions outlined in their original project plans. In some cases, planned targets have been exceeded and additional activities have been initiated. Interventions include  Property Level Protection, rain gauges, CCTV schemes and community flood stores as well as outreach approaches such as materials for engaging with schools and a Junior Flood Action Group.

A new report by the government’s official adviser on preparing for climate change, The Committee on Climate Change has called for vital work to begin to enhance the resilience of transport networks, homes, hospitals and water supplies.

The Environmental Change Institute in the University of Oxford is advertising for a Research Fellow in Global Assessment of Water Security.

Scotland’s Centre of Expertise for Waters (CREW) delivers accessible research and expert opinion to support Scottish Government and its delivery partners in the development and implementation of water policy in Scotland.