Climate change means that managing flood risk is everyone’s responsibility

Fiona Barbour is Edinburgh city lead with Mott MacDonald

This can be by carrying out works to their house to make it more resilient to flooding or it can be by changing doors, raising electrical sockets or getting self-closing air bricks. These measures can be undertaken at minimal additional cost if carried out as part of any planned household improvement. Investment of a few thousand pounds can make a significant difference to reducing the cost of flooding and the duration of time people spend out of their homes.

I have been aware of horror stories of people out of their homes for years while the repairs are carried out following a flood, this disruption can be a significant contributor to the stress associated with flooding.

If we can get into people’s mindset that this should be something you do as a matter of course to protect your home, much like getting a fire or burglar alarm. It is a small investment to avoid great heartache and costs.

Another significant challenge is that people do not think they are at risk of flooding unless they have been flooded or their properties have nearly flooded before. With over 3M people at risk of flooding from surface water any house could be at risk, not just those near rivers and coasts. Nearly two in three households who are at risk of flooding don’t believe it will happen to them, according to analysis by the Environment Agency last year.

A further hurdle is that people feel it should be the job of the council to protect them from flooding. While there are responsible authorities, be it water companies, local authorities or the Environment Agency are working very hard to reduce flood risk, this should not negate the role the homeowner should be taking to reduce the impact of flooding to them.

With climate change increasing the frequency and intensity of flooding more and more homes will be identified as at risk and therefore everyone should look into how to make their home resilient even if you think you are not at risk, this can be done in the following ways:

• Get informed – So much information on flood risk is freely available online you can easily become informed of your flood risk
• Get expert advice – You can engage experts to advise on the best product for your home to reduce the impact of flooding
• Get thinking – Make sure you have insurance information accessible during a flood (maybe digitally), permanently keep paperwork and wedding photos upstairs
• Get warnings – You can sign up for flood warning alerts to your mobile phone
• Get a plan – Figure out what you would do to respond to a warning – move your car? Raise items off the flood that could get damaged. Think about extra help vulnerable people may need.

However, householders can increase flood risk either to themselves or their neighbours without realising it. This can be from flushing materials such as wipes down the toilet causing blocking of sewers, to paving their front gardens reducing the amount of raining absorbed into the soil. Just as we have seen a shift in behaviours around recycling over the last few decades to reduce our impact on the planet, and we are starting to see changes in behaviours over travel choice to reduce carbon use, I believe we will see a shift in behaviours around water management where everyone will do their part to minimise the impact of a changing climate.

At the end of the day, it requires a change in attitude. This new attitude needs to be one where everybody feel responsible to all they can to minimise the impact of flooding, as well as all they can do to further reduce climate change.

• Fiona Barbour is Edinburgh city lead with Mott MacDonald

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