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CHAPTER 2: DEVELOPING A SUSTAINABLE APPROACH TO FLOOD RISK MANAGEMENT
Sustainable development
2.1 The Scottish Government is committed to building a sustainable future and has published its Economic Strategy aimed at creating a more successful country with opportunities for all of Scotland to flourish, through increasing sustainable economic growth, which it defines as building a dynamic and growing economy that will provide prosperity and opportunities for all, while ensuring that future generations can enjoy a better quality of life too. It sets out the approach for the whole of the public sector to work collaboratively with the private, academic and third sectors to achieve this purpose.
2.2 In order to facilitate delivery of its Economic Strategy, the Scottish Government has identified five Strategic Objectives which map a Scotland that is wealthier and fairer, smarter, healthier, safer and stronger, and greener. The alignment of the Scottish Government's work with these Strategic Objectives will help us to deliver the sustainable development that will increase the prosperity of Scotland.
2.3 Management of flood risk has a significant contribution to play to the achievement of all these Strategic Objectives, and particularly safer and stronger and greener.
Sustainable flood management
2.4 The Scottish Government believe that the principles of sustainable development provide a valuable basis for developing a sustainable approach to flood management. Ensuring that a sustainable approach to flood management can be delivered in Scotland will be at the heart of the Flooding Bill proposals.
2.5 While the Bill is intended to set the framework to ensure sustainable flood management, the legislation will not define sustainable flood management, or list possible measures. To do so would run the risk of creating an inflexible system that would be unable to adapt to changing pressures caused by climate change, or to utilise more up-to-date methods as our understanding of methods to manage flood risk develops.
2.6 It is important, however, that all bodies involved in flood management and the public have a shared understanding of what sustainable flood management means. It is proposed that this common understanding should be based on the definition of Sustainable Flood Management proposed by FIAC (BOX 4).
2.7 The Scottish Government proposes to develop guidance on the definition of sustainable flood management. This guidance will also include objectives, principles (BOX 5) and indicators of sustainable flood management (ANNEX B) which can be used to assess the performance of flood management measures and plans.
BOX 4 Definition of Sustainable Flood Management |
The Flooding Issues Advisory Committee ( FIAC) was a stakeholder group established to provide advice to Ministers on flood risk management issues. FIAC proposed this definition of sustainable flood management: "Sustainable flood management provides the maximum possible social and economic resilience* against flooding**, by protecting and working with the environment, in a way which is fair and affordable both now and in the future." * 'Resilience' means: 'ability to recover quickly and easily'. The Scottish Government uses it to deliver the 'four As': Awareness + Avoidance + Alleviation + Assistance. ** Flooding means all types of flooding: surface water run-off (pluvial), sewer, river, groundwater, estuarine and coastal. |
2.8 FIAC proposed the following overall objective of sustainable flood management:
- Meet needs for flood resilience
and that to meet this overall objective it must be integrated with four further objectives:
- A social objective to enhance community benefit with fair access for everyone;
- An environmental objective to protect and work with the environment, with respect for all species, habitats, landscapes and built heritage;
- An economic objective to deliver resilience at affordable cost with fair economic outcomes; and
- A future generation's objective to allow for future adaptability, with a fair balance between meeting present needs and those of future generations.
The Scottish government would like to hear your views on the definition of sustainable flood management and the associated objectives and principles.
Q1. Do you believe the definition of SFM is helpful and of practical benefit to flood risk management?
Q2. Do you think the definition is clear and simple to understand?
BOX 5 Principles of Sustainable Flood Management |
1. Strategic Approach: Sustainable flood management should reflect a strategic approach both nationally (across Scotland) and locally with links to the River Basin Management Plan Process and with phasing where appropriate. It should take account of the 2003 Act principles of co-ordinated management to achieve relevant objectives for all water bodies, and the planning policy contained in Scottish Planning Policy 7. It should use strategic environmental assessment and sustainability appraisal as they are introduced into Scottish methodology. 2. Responsibilities: All stakeholders should be actively engaged in and share responsibility for achieving sustainable flood management. They are expected to collaborate constructively to meet sustainable flood management objectives, with the lead taken by the appropriate party(ies) according to their statutory, legal, common law or commercial roles. 3. Options Appraisal: Sustainability issues should be considered from the earliest stages of investigating options. The options considered for flood management should include, through to full evaluation, at least one option that represents a 'most sustainable benchmark', addressing all four 'A's: Awareness, Avoidance, Alleviation and Assistance, even if regulatory or legal barriers appear to block implementation. Decision-making tools will include, but not be limited to, Cost Benefit Analysis and should make the 'values' applied explicit. It will also be a requirement for the carbon emissions impact to be considered, in line with the Scottish Government's commitment to carbon cross compliance. 4. Uncertainty: A long-term view of sustainability means acknowledging and taking account of current uncertainties (including current data and models) and future uncertainties. Flood risk should be expressed clearly. It also requires explicit consideration of the implications of flood events that exceed design limits. 5. Multiple Benefits: Sustainable flood management should seek opportunities for multiple benefits, but also cover costs and frequency of loss (economic, rural, landscape or amenity enhancement), wherever possible and seek other relevant funding sources. 6. Openness: The whole sustainable flood management process should be transparent; and there should be a common, shared source of information, from which all stakeholders can access and learn. 7. Democracy: Sustainable flood management should promote effective community engagement. Decisions should be taken at the local level, as far as possible, and reflect local community 'Agenda 21' or similar sustainability objectives. Parties should plan and manage to achieve community consents without the cost and delay of a Public Inquiry. 8. Simplicity: Implementation of sustainable flood management should be understandable, aim for ease of delivery, and promote continual learning, and sharing of knowledge. |
2.9 In practice, adopting a sustainable approach to flood risk management will require practitioners to consider a wide range of measures for managing flood risk and to plan these measures across whole catchments or coastlines (Figure 1, BOX 5). Management plans will be required to enable selection of the most appropriate combination of measures for a particular location.
2.10 Adopting a sustainable approach to flood risk management increases the range of responses available. This means that in some cases the overall development of a flood risk management project would be different in design and in scope to a traditional engineering solution. This will also have implications for the process and timescales of implementation since some measures across a catchment are likely to take more time to develop and to reach their full effectiveness e.g. natural flood management measures such as replanting upland forests or wetland creation. Measures will therefore have to be presented and evaluated in their full context - not in isolation.
Figure 1 Illustration of sustainable flood management
2.11 The participation of a wide range of stakeholders, at all levels, from the earliest stages of the process, is fundamental to the success of the sustainable approach. It can help determine the most sustainable options as well as agree a shared responsibility for their implementation. The statutory framework should provide the basis for stakeholders to work creatively and co-operatively with each other across sectors, responsibilities and policy interests.
2.12 The Water Environment and Water Services (Scotland) Act 2003 ("the 2003 Act"), together with the secondary legislation made under that Act, transposes the EC Water Framework Directive into Scots Law. The 2003 Act made the link between flood risk management and protecting the water environment by placing a duty on Scottish Ministers, SEPA and responsible authorities to promote sustainable flood management when carrying out certain functions (including flood prevention functions) and to adopt an integrated approach in doing so.
2.13 Although the duty to promote sustainable flood management is firmly in place, the current flooding legislation in Scotland does not meet all the challenges of addressing flood risk management in the 21st century.
2.14 Sustainable flood management should not be confused with "natural flood management". Natural flood management promotes a subset of flood alleviation techniques that aim to work with natural process to reduce flood risk. Examples of natural techniques include replanting upland forests, reconnecting rivers to their flood plains and restoring wetlands to act as natural sponges for flood waters.
Callander 2006
2.15 Whilst natural flood management measures can help reduce peak flows during flood events and address, in part, the cause of flooding, they are likely to be most effective when combined with more 'traditional' engineering options for flood alleviation protecting people and property within settlements and communities. Improving awareness and understanding of the benefits of natural approaches to flood management will be an important element of flood risk management in Scotland.
2.16 The Scotland Rural Development Programme 2007-13 includes measures to address economic and social goals as well as environmental measures. It brings together a wide range of formerly separate support schemes including those covering the farming, forestry and primary processing sectors, rural enterprise and business development, diversification and rural tourism. Natural flood management measures such as wetland creation will be eligible for funding under this programme.
2.17 Increased use of other non-structural flood management measures, such as flood warning and development control, will also provide an important contribution to delivering sustainable approaches to flood management.
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