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Water, water, everywhere…

By ucftjgt, on 13 January 2016

floodingWatching politicians wearing rubber boots wading through floodwaters is quickly becoming become an annual winter and spring tradition in the UK[1]. This year, a number of voices have attributed blame for the floods on cutbacks in flood defence spending, land use management, building construction in flood-vulnerable locations, and climate change. In reality, the flooding is likely to be a combination of all these factors. What we can say with confidence, though, is that we should expect the type of rainfall events that caused the floods to become more common in the future due to climate change – indeed, research indicates that climate change made this year’s floods across the UK 40% more likely[2]. As the risk of floods becomes greater, we need to learn how to be more resilient against floods, which requires increasing our understanding of their impact on population health and buildings. (more…)