The upcoming Institution of Civil Engineers conference on flooding is set to examine a wide range of key issues – including what the UK water companies could be doing to stimulate a wider range of measures for flood risk management.

With the cost of 2012’s widespread floods reaching over £1 billion, ICE has described the need for a cohesive and joined-up approach in flood prevention and response as stark, with the development of flood resilient communities now a UK priority following the last 18 months of adverse weather and the devastation caused by flooding.

The Keynote Address by Environment Minister Richard Benyon, among a range of high-level speakers at the conference, will be heard with particular interest. The Minister is expected to set out a summary of the Government’s current and future flooding strategy – including the current funding and legislative environment

Mark Worsfold, Head of Asset Strategy at water sector regulator OFWAT will be speaking about regulatory guidance for water companies in producing strategies to enable flood management.

The conference is seeking to move the ongoing debate around flood risk management on from 'where do we build’ to 'how do we build' ( e.g. flexible buildings and floating homes) and how to incorporate the lessons learnt from developing in high risk areas in terms of what can and can’t be done. It will also explore why the UK is not currently retrofitting flooded houses to make them more flood resilient for the future. At the implementation level, the conference includes the presentation of an independent analysis of flood resilient technologies and also looks at barriers which are currently inhibiting their broader uptake.

Sessions on the urban development and flood resilience will address planning and developing for the new flooding reality and the role played by planners in delivering flood resilient communities.

Key policy issues the conference will also tackle is how much risk is too much risk and who should decide, and how to balancing flood risk with demand for new houses and the need to stimulate economic growth.

The session on Sustainable Urban Drainage Systems (SUDs) will be of particular interest in the light of the upcoming implementation of new National SuDS Standards for England and Wales in early 2014. Among the questions it will address are whether SUDS are effective and do they present value for money, together with who will pay for their long term maintenance funding.

Delegates will also hear about the UK can make its national infrastructure more resilient to flooding – now moving higher up both the political and business agenda. The floods of the last few years have amply demonstrated the potentially catastrophic impact extreme events can have on transport networks and water supplies. Presentations will explore how local flood strategies are in fact of national importance, together with the need to ensure that problems do not cascade and to protect regional and national infrastructure, assets and networks.

Finally, the conference will also look at the key issue of how to engage the public in active flood management, set up partnership funding and create an ethos of communities taking ownership of their flood risk management.

The subject of how current and future flood risk management schemes are funded is now an ongoing topic for debate at national level. In March Environment Secretary Owen Paterson MP compared spending on flood defences to investment in broadband and mobile phone networks as a method of stimulating economic growth in the UK. Speaking at the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (EFRA) Committee evidence session into flood funding, Paterson said he was “absolutely emphatically convinced” of the merit of flood schemes as economic generators.

The UK flood and coastal erosion risk management programme is among 40 priority projects identified in the Government’s National Infrastructure Plan. The Plan came in for strong criticism this week in a report from MPs on the House of Commons Public Accounts Committee which said it lacked rigour, clarity and priority.

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