Groundwater flooding represents a significant part of the overall flood risk in the UK, but is widely missed as it results from subsurface flow processes that are not very well understood and hard to observe. This brief review of last Winter brings a useful illustration of the groundwater hazard. …
Read more…The UK’s climate is changing, and this will potentially increase the frequency, severity and extent of groundwater flooding. Businesses and individuals should take action to assess vulnerability and improve resilience if they are at risk to groundwater flooding and climate change. The first step…
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The Met Office has provided its first major update on climate change in almost 10 years, warning of significant increases in rainfall, flood risk and coastal sea level rise in the decades ahead. This stark warning means planning authorities and communities will assess location for the long term on…
Read more…GeoSmart Information, the innovative environmental reports, data and services provider, has teamed up with Centremaps, to provide flooding and drainage data on its geospatial portal. The portal, called CentremapsLive, offers architects and planning consultants Ordnance Survey MasterMap extracts,…
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In a 2,000-page report, the Climate Change Committee outlines clearly that the UK is ill-prepared for the impact of long term climate change on our communities. Critical infrastructure could be destroyed by flooding, while soil quality will deplete through poor, overly intensive farming and land…
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GeoSmart was once again was proud to support another in a fascinating series of Castle Debates – this time on the uneasy relationship between agriculture and climate change. Farming generates greenhouse gases throughout its supply chain, yet it received little or no mention at the November 2015…
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The Environment Agency (EA) has devised a set of flood zones for guidance by developers, councils and communities to explain the probability of river and sea flooding, ignoring the presence of flood defences. Flood zones are shown on the EA’s Flood Map for Planning (Rivers and Sea), as…
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In the second of two consecutive blogs, we summarise the key outputs from the House of Lords National Policy for the Built Environment Committee meeting. Turning to the impact of climate change, the committee was fully behind the need for a more proactive approach to the provision of Sustainable…
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We were delighted to support and speak at the latest Castle Debates event, held at the Royal Institute of Chartered Surveyors (RICS) head office in Parliament Square. The debate focused on the supply and demand for housing, issues and innovations to overcome the need for inevitable development and…
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Innovation Director, Paul Ellis, attended a Public Policy Exchange conference last week looking at designing effective flood strategies and solutions for our communities. His observations show that, as a nation, we are some way off co-ordinating an effective and holistic response. Storms Desmond…
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