Flood Technology Group is consulted on Scottish Government’s National Flood Resilience Strategy
The importance of shifting the narrative away from ‘fixing flooding problems’ to ‘creating flood resilient places’ has been highlighted by those who responded to a recent consultation exercise on the Scottish Government’s National Flood Resilience Strategy.
According to an analysis report on the findings of the consultation, which was published last week, most respondents shared the view that traditional, hard engineering solutions alone are ‘insufficiently effective or flexible’. They also felt that taking a more holistic, catchment-based approach is the most logical way forward, including the use of nature-based solutions that would bring benefits to both people and nature.
Key themes covered in the analysis report include the need to involve people in decisions about improving flood resilience; consider what sort of changes must be made to our places to increase flood resilience; and, perhaps most importantly of all, change the way we do things and the way we work together to create flood resilient places.
Flood Technology Group was among almost 200 organisations and bodies that shared their views on the Scottish Government’s National Flood Resilience Strategy as part of the consultation exercise. Our Chief Executive Simon Gilliland, who has a wealth of experience in flood risk management and is a Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers, as well as being a member of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs’ Property Flood Resilience Roundtable, said:
“It’s pleasing to see our participation in the consultation exercise referenced in the analysis report published last week, which recognises that we have to focus less on trying to ‘fix’ flood problems and instead think about how we can make our communities more flood resilient.
“We believe that, in order to create thriving, climate resilient communities, flood adaptive technology needs to be at the very heart of the planning process. This requires a radical shake-up of planning policy, which simply doesn’t account for innovations within the built environment sector, such as rapidly evolving flood adaptive technology sector.”
Simon added:
“At Flood Technology Group, we’re working hard to raise awareness of the potential of flood adaptive technology among key stakeholders and policy-makers to ensure that it becomes a key element of the Scottish, Welsh and British Governments’ future plans.”
Story by Flood Technology Group
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