Mott MacDonald has been appointed by the Environment Agency (EA) to provide flood risk modelling and mapping for Barnstaple in Devon, UK.
Commissioned under the EA’s strategic flood risk management (SFRM) framework, the project will help to improve current understanding of flood risk from fluvial and tidal sources, as well as breaches, in Barnstaple and the surrounding area. Using a one- and two-dimensional hydrodynamic model, Mott MacDonald will determine flood depths, velocities and hazard levels, both now and in the future.
Sun Yan Evans, Mott MacDonald’s project manager for the scheme explains, “This wide-ranging study will play an important role in informing the Environment Agency’s future flood management plans for Barnstaple, an area which has suffered from floods in the past. Using a risk-based probabilistic approach, Mott MacDonald will look at the region’s existing tidal flood risk, Areas Befitting from Defences (ABDs), and how these would respond to flood risk in the future considering the impacts of climate change.”
She added, “This project will help the Environment Agency to develop flood management planning, design and maintenance. It will also assist the local authorities in improving Strategic Flood Risk Assessment, as well as understand the impacts related to development and identify flood hazard levels for emergency planning.”
Mott MacDonald will be working closely with the Environment Agency to help communicate this risk to the public and improve understanding of tidal flood risk within the Barnstaple community.
Mott MacDonald’s work on the project includes terrain and defence analysis, sea level, tidal and surge analysis, simulation of design events incorporating sea-level rise for the years 2010, 2070 and 2115 and modelling of both defended and undefended scenarios
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