Britain’s flood planners must prepare for the worst on climate change, the Environment Agency has warned.
According to the BBC, The chairwoman of the Environment Agency, Emma Howard Boyd, said on current trends, global temperature could rise between 2C and 4C by 2100 and £1bn a year would need to be spent on flood management.
She said some communities may even need to move because of the risk of floods, adding “We can’t win a war against water by building away climate change with infinitely high flood defences,” she said. She warned that in some places “the scale of the threat may be so significant that recovery will not always be the best long term solution” and communities would need help to “move out of harm’s way”.
The agency expects more intense bursts of rain and continuing coastal erosion.
It calculates that for every person who suffers flooding, about 16 more are affected by loss of services such as power, transport and telecommunications.
The government said it would be seeking evidence for its own flood policy in the autumn.
