Panoramic view of overtopping on coastal areas with house and train railway tracks

Resilience to flooding

Our expertise in flood resilience is helping to protect people, communities, and infrastructure across the world. We help clients to develop resilient approaches for all phases of flooding: before, during and after.

Delivering resilience means using a broad range of measures and dynamic decision-making that provide the foresight and flexibility to adapt to changing conditions. It is not simply about existing infrastructure, property or communities alone. The resilience approach accepts that change is inevitable, and in many cases out of our hands, and instead focuses on the need to be able to withstand and recover from the unexpected and, where reconstruction is needed, to build back better.

We provide expertise and tools for anticipating, resisting, absorbing, recovering, adapting and transforming that cover all phases of flooding: before, during and after.

What is resilience?

Resilience is the ability to anticipate, prepare for, and adapt to changing conditions and withstand, respond to, and recover rapidly from disruptions. Resilient approaches involve anticipating, resisting, absorbing, recovering, adapting and transforming from disturbing and extreme floods.

Resilience at all levels

System resilience We analyse flood risk across specific system to assess how it is likely to respond to flooding, and to determine the system’s resilience now and in the future.
Asset resilience We identity and advise on the likelihood of failure (fragility) of different types of flood defence when faced with floods of different severities.
Property resilience We support property resilience activities that include both resistance – temporary flood defences – and use of appropriate building materials.

We also have expertise that supports delivery of different aspects of resilience:

Anticipate Actions to prepare in advance to respond to shocks and stresses	Climate and socio-economic scenario analysis Methodological frameworks and approaches for planning and incorporating climate resilience Climate risk and vulnerability assessments (CRVAs) Asset management and condition assessment Integrated, multi-hazard assessments Systems analysis of interdependences Stress testing and extreme analysis Growing portfolio of forecasting capabilities Earth observation monitoring and forecasting
Resist Actions to help withstand or endure shocks and stresses to prevent an impact on infrastructure services	Design and good practice guidance for barriers, defences and assets Catchment management adopting natural flood measures Smart technologies and apps (e.g. for monitoring assets) Emergency plans (e.g. using Life Safety Modelling) Flood product testing and building resilience.
Absorb Actions that, accepting there will be or has been an impact on infrastructure services, aimto lessen that impact	Operational forecasting Real-time monitoring.
Adapt Actions that change the system to enable it to continue to deliver services	Forward looking strategies to keep options open for future interventions Scalable solutions involving multiple nested measures Decision pathways and adaptive management approaches Option appraisal, selection and optimisation, and visualisation Prioritisation of options and preparation of investment plans, and financing strategies Earth Observation for monitoring changes.
Transform Actions that improve systems, for example transforming infrastructure to meet the net zero carbon target, involving ambitious and even surprising scaleable solutions involving multiple nested measures.

Want to know more?

Jonathan Simm

Chief technical director, resilience

+44 (0)1491 822899

Send Jonathan Simm a message

Resilience to flooding

Resilience at all levels

Anticipate

Resist

Absorb

Adapt

Transform

Want to know more?

Jonathan Simm

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