On Thursday, 28 February 2013 12:33:50 UTC, Anne Burgess wrote:

It seems to me that the people who should be paying for the
flood damage are the developers who build on flood plains,
haughs, watermeadows, inches, whatever you like to call them,
and the local authorities who give planning permission for such
developments.

The other issue are the guidelines to which development is restricted. In these shifting times where (through anthropogenic means or otherwise) the climate is changing, if you don't allow construction, say, anywhere near the 50-year flood return period floodplain, then what exactly does this floodplain look like given that extreme rainfall seems to be one of the more likely bi-products of a broadly warming atmosphere.

The sensitivity of extremes (e.g. 50-year rainfall) in a changing climate can be much more volatile than numbers such as the average annual rainfall. Do we build outside the current floodplain or build outside the floodplain based on a future climate where flooding would be more likely?

I was at a research meeting recently that has been started by the Natural Environment Research Council that is trying to understand the uncertainties around such numbers. Very interesting it was, too!

Richard