The world is experiencing increasingly extreme and unpredictable flooding events, placing numerous communities at greater risk than ever. In many parts of the world flood risk managers are under pressure to not only build greater resilience, but also to cut costs and further protect the environment.
Through our unique global perspective, knowledge sharing abilities and project experience, our flood risk experts, hydrologists and engineers understand the pressures on flood risk management authorities. Our teams are at the forefront of the new thinking required to solve these complex challenges and are enabling the delivery of more sustainable flood protection.
This issue of Without Limits explains how innovative approaches can be combined with shared responsibility for flood and water management to effectively deliver long-term flood resilience, and the benefits of better understanding the nature and needs of a catchment to reduce the overall cost of schemes.
Over the following pages we also explore how property level protection can empower people to protect themselves from flooding, how to use water more sustainably through water sensitive urban design and how encouraging people to invest in natural flood protection can help local authorities meet their partnership funding needs while protecting the environment. We also offer six ways to make holistic flood risk management work better and build on lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy in the US to show how it is possible to improve city-wide resilience to natural disasters.
We know that hard engineered defences alone are not enough to protect communities from future flooding and that flood and water authorities need more sustainable solutions if they are to meet their flood risk management responsibilities as well as make a lasting, positive difference to people’s lives.
Header image: Landslides and coastal erosion at Lyme Regis in Dorset left many homes at risk. Undertaking one of the UK’s most complex coastal schemes, AECOM has designed a new sea wall, cliff protection and drainage systems protecting these vulnerable homes and infrastructure, as well as bringing people closer to water
