The Environment Agency has announced plans to undertake a Strategic Environmental Assessment for the National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy 2050.

The revised flood and coastal erosion risk management (FCERM) strategy requires a Strategic Environmental Assessment (SEA) under the Environmental Assessment of Plans and Programmes Regulations.

A formal consultation on the draft FCERM Strategy, which will consider what flood and coastal erosion risk management will look like in 2050, is planned for January 2019. The Agency has now published an initial scoping report on the SEA – the scoping stage of SEA decides the issues the Agency should address and the approach.

The Agency will present the outcome in the environmental report which will be published together with the consultation on the draft FCERM Strategy 2050.

The strategy will include, among other things:

• an overview of flood and coastal erosion risk in England
• a long-term, strategic ambition for managing flood and coastal erosion risk in England
• the high-level measures proposed to achieve that ambition
• the contribution these will make towards the government’s wider environmental objectives
• how and when the strategy will be reviewed

The Agency said it now intends to undertake an environmental assessment and prepare an environmental report in respect of the strategy. Part of the process of creating a new National FCERM Strategy includes a Strategic Environmental Assessment - this is a legal part of the process.

The current national flood and coastal erosion risk management strategy was published in May 2011. In its 25 year Environment Plan the Government committed the Environment Agency to revising the FCERM strategy in 2019.

The FCERM strategy will consider all forms of flooding, including rivers and smaller watercourses, the sea, surface runoff from land, groundwater, sewers (where this is caused by an increase in volume of rainwater), reservoirs, canals and other artificial sources.

It also considers the risks of coastal erosion in England, including landslip, accretion and permanent inundation by the sea.

The revised FCERM strategy will focus on three main time horizons:

• Long-term: set an ambition for 2050 which spans parliamentary terms and is long enough to take account of climate change.
• Short term: It will be underpinned by an action plan for the next 5-10 years of the things the wider flood sector will commit to doing to move towards that ambition.
• Future-proofing: all actions will be tested against a vision of the future in 2100

Click here to download the Initial Scoping Report for the SEA

Waterbriefing is media partner with the upcoming Flood Expo, which is supported by the Environment Agency. The Expo takes place at the NEC in Birmingham from 12^th to 13^th September 2018. Click here for more information about the Expo and to register for free tickets