Wet Wet Wet - Flooding and Climate Adaptation
"Water" is all Around...
Welcome to 2024 and the dawn of a new era, certainly for me,?with the establishment? of WesterHayes Impact Advisory where I am working alongside my fellow Director, Ling Sin Fai Lam, CFA . We have a?focus on issues relating to Climate Adaptation, Natural Capital, and the Energy Transition.
Exciting times lie ahead and I am fortunate to be living in a part of the UK, the South of Scotland, where there is a significant amount of activity underway in all three areas. It is fascinating to see the potential conflicting interests that are starting to come into play as plans evolve and in particular the interests of Communities in potential benefits of such investments and how those might materialise. Seeing Natural Capital being piloted, one can readily see some of the education that is required, as new business models appear. Understanding those will be key, and it’s fascinating to be in the front line.?
Saturday was a dry day and super weather which makes a change and a chance to blow away the cobwebs. It also highlights the spectacular setting of where I live.
The front line this week though is water.. (again )
The Changing Water Balance, An excellent recent summary from the James Hutton Institute highlighting potential impact of climate changes north of the border has reappeared. Timely as it turns out.
This brings a longer term perspective on the potential issues and the requirement for a plan. Accelerated interest in planning tends to be triggered, unsurprisingly, by bursts of wetter weather, and more "extreme" events. The last six months of 2023 were the wettest in the UK since 1890, and the deluges continued into 2024. The 2 page Executive Summary from the JHI highlights the potential changes by month that we could see going forward.
https://www.hutton.ac.uk/sites/default/files/files/2-page Executive Summary - climate trends-projections-extremes implications for Natural Capital and Policy 12-7-23.pdf
?And in the winter months highlighted in their study
November, December and January’s mean monthly precipitation totals have already increased since the 1960- 1989 baseline period to amounts greater than those projected for the 2020-2049 period.
It looks like accelerated Climate Adaptation is clearly required.
?Water, Water, Everywhere, Or Not?
Storms Gerrit and then Henk have raised the level of debate again as we enter 2024.
The River Jed was one local example from Gerrit and the headwaters of the Jed rise actually in the forest pictured behind the two dogs above. ?
Whilst currently looking at the post Gerrit impact, Storm Henk has left a huge mark. As I was married in Gloucestershire, and it is where my family lived for a while, the Severn issues around Tewkesbury I am aware of different local challenges, and more of that below.
We undoubtedly should have Climate Adaptation high on the "local agenda" going forward with Flooding, or Flood prevention, as part of Land Use . The recent floods over the last few years have increased in regularity with a greater prevalence of significant flooding, and that has triggered investment in significant flood defences in Scottish Border towns (Hawick, Selkirk). The major flood defence scheme constructed in Hawick (https://www.hawickfloodscheme.com/home?) has come at a cost of ￡90m, and clearly should protect the town, and has been welcomed. However, local rural communities strongly feel more work needs to be done to protect local villages, and to address flooding in natural ways in the headwaters of the local rivers.? Ongoing commercial forestry harvesting provides an added focus of concern.
?An extract from the Regional Land Use Pilot for the south of Scotland highlights the influence of forestry.
And the relevant extract from the Consultation ....
"Impacts of forestry on water availability may also come under closer scrutiny. The amount of water that a forest uses remains an important subject of debate, but Forest Research indicates that conifer forests can have the most significant impacts on water availability.?On a catchment basis in the wetter uplands, the additional water use by a complete cover of mature conifer forest can result in a 15 to 20% reduction in the annual volume of streamflow;?and the impact on water supplies can be even greater in the lowlands, where a conifer forest can reduce the annual volume of water recharging a groundwater aquifer by 70% or more compared to grass.?"
Rapid run off is an issue already in forested areas, and major harvesting is underway in the catchments locally to add to local concerns with potentially more water flow to contend with.
A map of the South of Scotland breaks down the land use so one can see where Forestry kicks in...
The full consultation document on the pilot is here (still open for responses ),
领英推荐
So how fast is the run off? As it turns out ,,, Fast,,,
It is well worth looking at the PROPWET, Base Flow Index , and The SPR (standard percentage runoff ) for the catchment near you. The UK Centre for Ecology & Hydrology Flood Estimation Handbook Web Service is an excellent site to dive into. https://fehweb.ceh.ac.uk/.
An extract from the Millmoor Rig Wind Farm application also provides useful colour on the very local hydrology as an example and the Jed is cited here.
"The catchment wetness index (PROPWET) for both the Jed Water and Catlee Burn is 0.57, indicating soils in the site are wet for 57% of the time. The area has a base flow index (BFI HOST19) of between 0.32 and 0.45, indicating a moderate to low input of groundwater baseflow to surface watercourses. The standard percentage runoff (SPR HOST) is 37-50%, indicating that this percentage of rainfall on site is converted into surface runoff from rainfall events; this represents a high runoff risk where soils have a limited capacity to store rainfall and/or a slow infiltration rate and would quickly saturate, leading to rapid runoff."
Run off doesn’t get to rivers necessarily directly and as we have seen in both Scotland and England local infrastructure is impacted. The verges here have been repaired several times but are vulnerable in major rain incidents and need periodical revisiting. This is a minor local example and each area will have their own.
"Go Your Own Way "....
An Englishman's home with a moat ,,,,,,taking an individual approach
I mentioned Gloucester and Tewskesbury earlier on. As Ling Sin Fai Lam, CFA has highlighted an individual example of Climate Adaptation that has been featured in just a little further upstream in the River Severn
Should we really have to be "Going your own way ? " or get some broader help? 1I
?The way ahead…
·?????? Upstream Initiatives?..water storage, further enhancement of resilience planning.
·?????? Spatial Planning .. there must be more consideration of the cumulative impact of the increased water flow, and measures that can be brought to bear. Joined up thinking required on Future Land Use.
·?????? Sensors?to detect rapid run off to help communities at risk. This must be a priority.
·?????? Funding, will be the key, especially for cash strapped institutions. If we do see significant natural capital investment, can upstream management become a key integral part of this, and a key part of Community Benefits? One obviously has to clearly recognise that different catchments will require different solutions. This is not a one size fits all. Does one aim for the faster run off sites first? We can also see catchments where upstream intervention has brought clear benefits (eg https://knepp.co.uk/knepp-estate/) and would encourage the early adoption elsewhere, highlighting the benefits, and also the costs, of the schemes. A targeted and effective use of funds should yield highly beneficial results.
AMP8. It is also worth a quick revisit of the proposed Spending Plans of the Water Companies in England & Wales for the 2025-30 Period, which showed a massive uplift on Period 7. Those increases look well merited , and currently look set for regulatory approval at the start of 2025, with the new period commencing in April of that year. A early chance to work on catchment preferences with the increased amounts available for Environmental projects.
?Philip Kerr
Director
WesterHayes Impact Advisory
07768636919
Founder, CEO, Climate AI/ML Scientist, PhD in Geophysics, Winner of the London Tech Week 2022 startup pitch competition Elevating Founders, TechNation RisingStars-5 London Finalist 2022, fundraising with EIS SEIS (Seed)
6 个月100 meter flood maps : #global #api #scenarioanalysis #returnperiod #probability https://www.dhirubhai.net/feed/update/urn:li:activity:7196123962060218369
Equity Analysis, Strategic Advisory, Pitch Practice, Investor Presentation Coaching
10 个月Interesting that you mention the wall/moat around the house near (now in) the Severn that featured on the news. I'm sure that one stark image made many of us ponder the future practical realities of adapting to climate change. A picture paints ... .