Communities told ‘adapt or die’ in face of flooding risk
HUNDREDS of people could perish in floods in parts of England, the Environment Agency has warned as it urged communities across the country to “adapt or die”.
In a strongly worded report on the need for coastal and other towns to adapt to climate change, it said floods that caused devastation in Germany this summer would soon happen here.
Emma Howard Boyd, its chairwoman, said it could not protect everyone from “inevitable” climate change.
She said: “Some 200 people died in this summer’s flooding in Germany. That will happen in this country sooner or later, however high we build our flood defences, unless we also make the places where we live, work and travel resilient to the effects of the more violent weather the climate emergency is bringing. It is adapt or die.”
Floods and rising sea levels would “reshape” the natural world, the environmental regulator said, as changing weather meant that it “will not be technically, socially, and economically viable to protect every community”.
“Instead, alongside constructing and maintaining defences, we must help communities learn to live with risk, minimise damage, and return to normal life quickly,” the agency said. There is too much focus on trying to stop climate change and not enough on preparing for its effects, including flooding, coastal erosion and depleted drinking water supplies, it warned.
Population growth and climate change will also put more pressure on the water system, the agency said.
If no additional measures are introduced between 2025 and 2050, more than 3.4 billion extra litres of water a day will be needed to ensure public water supplies, its figures show.
Necessary improvements include restoring peat bogs and wetlands to improve water quality and availability, which is under pressure from growing demand, pollution and physical changes to rivers and the coast.
Sewer systems that allow sewage to be dumped in rivers and the sea will also have to be used more frequently, it said, causing more pollution.
The Environment Agency has pledged to spend £5.2billion on flood defences over the next six years, but has said it cannot protect all homes in its strongly worded report.
The “burden of emergency response will increasingly divert our staff and resources from other activities”, the report added. The agency has come under growing scrutiny amid concern about river pollution, as campaigners say concern about flooding is diverting attention from targeting polluters.
Not one of Britain’s rivers meets water quality standards, and last year Ms Howard Boyd wrote to George Eustice, the Environment Secretary, to say the agency “no longer has the investment we need to protect and enhance the environment in all the ways asked of us”, amid cuts to its budget.
This year the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, a UN group, warned that severe weather events had already become more likely in recent decades because of a warming climate.