Adapting Environment Agency Incident Response for Climate Resilience

根据《民事应急法案》，环境局(EA)是1类应急机构，这意味着EA必须评估风险，规划并采取行动应对洪水和干旱紧急情况。有人担心，气候变化可能会改变事件的模式和频率(目前每年约有80起重大事件)，环境保护局需要更好地了解其应对能力可能受到的影响。虽然事件记录保存在当地，但对当前事件响应的规模、频率和模式，或者未来这种情况可能发生的变化，国家战略了解有限。通过这个项目，我们旨在了解当前和未来水旱事件对环境保护局的响应需求。这一证据将为战略规划和业务事件响应模型提供信息。2020年，EA将首次建立小型核心事件响应团队，但仍将依靠工作人员志愿者在事件发生时搁置日常工作。更好地理解未来的需求可能会改变EA的运作方式，在其职权范围内建立韧性，但也会影响它如何与其他国家组织合作，在洪水和干旱期间支持英格兰。这项工作将分四个工作包进行，这些工作包将产生对气候复原力社区(地方防洪主管部门、DEFRA、水务公司、学者)具有更广泛用途的成果。这些成果是：1)为战略思考提供参考的气候适应性事件反应综合报告；2)事件反应的国家统计数据；3)触发事件反应的一套区域水文指数/阈值；4)对未来水旱事件反应频率的预测。

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.