news from the BRE Group
published: 2/12/2014
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BRE Centre for Resilience says Government's flood defence approach needs to go further
BRE welcomes the Treasury’s £2.3 billion investment in flood defences but with one in six homes now under threat of flooding from rivers, sea and surface water a new approach to dealing with the risks is needed.
Dr Stephen Garvin who heads up the BRE Centre for Resilience. launched earlier this year to address the issues around adapting the built environment so it can withstand the effects of climate change said ‘There are 5.2 million homes at risk of flooding. This investment will protect 300,000 of these but a new approach to flood management is needed to reduce the risks further. The Centre urges the Government to think about the rise in surface water flooding, prevalent in urban areas as this requires a more adaptive flood management approach. Our urban environment continues to grow apace – surface water management needs to be embedded in the new developments we construct with things like sustainable urban drainage systems, green roofs to decrease water run off as well as localised flood resilient technologies.’
Dr Garvin launched his white paper ‘A Future Flood Resilient Built Environment’ at the first international conference on resilience www.resilience14.com last week. The paper aims to stimulate a debate around the best approaches to flooding risk management. The paper can be downloaded here.
For further information please contact Linda McKeown, BRE, email mckeownl@bre.co.uk, tel 01923 664569
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