Flood Hydrology Roadmap

The UK’s Flood Hydrology Roadmap is designed to safeguard communities, infrastructure, and natural environments from the escalating risks of flooding.

Sean Longfield1, Sue Manson 1 and Anita Asadullah 1

The UK’s Flood Hydrology Roadmap, led by the Environment Agency, was published in 2022. It charted a course from 2021 to 2046 to guide the UK towards a more resilient, scientifically driven, and collaborative approach to improve flood hydrology.

The roadmap emerged in response to several strategic drivers. Flood hydrology underpins investment decisions across flood and coastal risk management, with an estimated £6 billion of investment in the UK planned between 2022 and 2028. This, combined with a need to support the implementation of flood risk management strategies across the UK required a new long-term vision and direction for flood hydrology.

In response, the roadmap provided a UK-wide plan of action to improve ways of working, data, methods and scientific understanding in hydrology so that risk information was robust and could continue to support activities for safeguarding communities, infrastructure, and natural environments from the escalating risks of flooding. It considered all inland flood sources—rivers, surface water, groundwater, and reservoirs across England, Wales, Scotland, and Northern Ireland.

The roadmap for UK flood hydrology. Image credit: Environment Agency.