Enhancing UK Flood Resilience: Past Floods, Present Threats, Future Responses

洪水是当今英国面临的最严重的环境威胁。据预测，在未来几十年里，这一问题还会加剧。我们迫切需要集体应对这一挑战以及其他与气候相关的挑战，这反映在最近词汇的变化上：我们不再谈论危机，而是谈论紧急情况。积极应对洪水威胁需要中央政府、地方政府、环保机构、学术界和公众的一致行动。未来洪水控制的关键将是如何最好地管理英国景观的基本决定。许多人开始意识到，如果这个国家要变得更有抗洪能力，景观改变可能必须在概念上激进，在行动上大胆。为了既切实可行又可交付，如果过渡不被抵制和延迟，就必须有效地向受变化影响的社区传达来自新景观配置的积极利益。该研究网络由来自艺术和人文学科的学者领导，将那些对历史和当代环境感兴趣的人聚集在一起，提供关于英国景观的过去、现在和未来形状以及对洪水的社会反应的观点。该网络首先侧重于在英格兰和威尔士建立更强的抗洪能力所需的景观决策。随着时间的推移，网络将寻求扩大其职权范围到整个英国和超越。该网络旨在打破学术孤岛，特别是打破艺术和人文科学之间的鸿沟。至关重要的是，该网络将包括那些目前负责在全国范围内建设和提供抗洪能力的机构的代表。它的明确目标是为当前的讨论和辩论做出实质性贡献，这些讨论和辩论围绕着英国不断上升的洪水威胁做出最适当和可交付的回应。特别是，它看起来充分利用了独特的，很大程度上被忽视的贡献，即艺术和人文阅读对英国景观的长期发展和社会对洪水的反应，可能会在未来创造更多抗洪水的社区和景观。只有通过跨学科治疗才能完全解决的三个问题导致了这个研究网络的建立并指导了它的议程。首先，我们是否应该继续依赖硬工程防御作为减轻洪水的主要方法，或者我们是否应该转向更柔和的自然洪水管理策略？其次，我们可以从过去社区应对洪水的方式和他们为减轻洪水而采取的土地管理实践中吸取什么教训？这些教训是否可以为未来提供模板？第三，在认识到景观变化将影响人们与熟悉景观的现有关系和欣赏的同时，如何、在何处以及以何种方式最好和最敏感地实现这种必要的转变？该网络直接回应那些负责洪水管理和提供这些必要的景观变化的人，以及他们希望从学院得到什么，以填补他们已经确定的证据空白，以及他们希望得到什么，以加强他们目前的实践。它将建立一个新的研究议程，其中艺术和人文研究将在未来证明英国景观免受日益严重的洪水威胁方面发挥核心作用。该网络将与环境署密切合作，为诺丁汉郡和林肯郡北部的阿克塞姆岛低洼、受洪水保护的景观制定并提供未来可持续管理计划，为该网络提供研究重点，并有可能产生更直接的影响。

Flooding represents the most serious environmental threat to the UK today. It is a problem predicted to increase over the next few decades. The urgency with which collective responses must be found to this, and other climate-related challenges, is reflected in the recent shift in vocabulary: we no longer talk of a crisis but an emergency. Positive responses to the flood threat will require a unity of action between central government and local authorities, environmental agencies, academics, and the public. Key to future flood control will be the fundamental decisions now being taken over how the UK landscape can be best managed. Within many quarters there is a dawning realisation that if the country is to become more flood resilient, landscape change may have to be radical in conception and bold in undertaking. To be both practicable and deliverable, it is essential that the positive benefits deriving from new configurations of the landscape are communicated effectively to communities affected by change if the transition is not to be resisted and delayed.This Research Network, led by scholars from the Arts and Humanities, draws together those with interests in the historic and contemporary environment, with perspectives to offer on the past, present, and future shape of the British landscape and societal responses to flooding. This Network focuses, in the first instance, on those landscape decisions that are required to be taken to build greater flood resilience in England and Wales. Over time, the Network will look to broaden its remit to the whole of the UK and beyond. The Network aims to break down academic silos, and in particular collapse the Arts and Humanities-Science divide. Crucially, the Network will involve representatives from those agencies currently charged with building and delivering flood resilience across the country. It has the express ambition of contributing substantively to current discourse and debates surrounding the most appropriate and deliverable responses to the rising flood threat in the UK. In particular it looks to fully exploit the unique, and largely overlooked, contribution that Arts and Humanities readings of the long-term development of the British landscape and societal responses to flooding, might make in creating more flood resistant communities and landscapes into the future. Three questions, which can only be fully addressed through interdisciplinary treatment, have led to the creation of this Research Network and guide its agenda. First, can we or should we continue to rely on on hard engineered defences as the principal method for mitigating floods or should we be moving towards softer natural flood management strategies? Second, what lessons can be drawn from the ways in which communities have responded to flooding in the past and the land management practices they adopted to mitigate against floods: might these provide templates for the future? Thirdly, in recognising that landscape change will impact people's existing relationship with, and appreciation of, familiar landscapes, how, where, and in what ways might this required transformation be best and most sensitively achieved? The Network responds directly to those responsible for flood management and delivering these necessary landscape changes and what they desire from the academy in order to fill evidential gaps they have identified and which they want in order to enhance their current practice. It will establish a new research agenda in which Arts and Humanities research will play a central role in future proofing the UK landscape against the rising threat of flooding. Providing a research focus for the Network with the potential to deliver more immediate impact, the Network will work closely with the Environment Agency as they develop and deliver their plans for the future sustainable management of the low-lying, flood-protected landscape of Isle of Axholme in north Nottinghamshire and Lincolnshire.