Adapting Environment Agency Incident Response for Climate Resilience

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The Environment Agency (EA) is a Category 1 responder under the Civil Contingencies Act, which means that the EA must assess risk, plan and act on flood and drought emergencies. There is concern that climate change could alter the pattern and frequency of incidents (currently ~80 major incidents each year) and the EA needs to better understand how its capacity to respond may be affected. While incident records are kept locally, there is limited national strategic understanding of the current size, frequency and pattern of incident response or how this is likely to change in the future. Through this project we aim to understand the current and future flood and drought incident response demands on the EA. This evidence will inform strategic planning and operational incident response models. In 2020 the EA will establish small core incident response teams for the first time but will still rely on staff volunteers setting aside their day jobs during incidents. Better understanding of future demands could change the way the EA operates, building resilience across its remit but also affecting how it works with other national organisations in supporting England during floods and droughts. The work will be undertaken in four work packages that will result in deliverables of broader use to the climate resilience community (Lead Local Flood Authorities, DEFRA, water companies, academics). These deliverables are 1) a climate resilient incident response synthesis report to inform strategic thinking, 2) national statistics of incident response 3) a set of regional hydrological indices/thresholds that trigger incident response and 4) projections of future flood and drought incident response frequencies.