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Many communities around the world are facing increasing flood-induced damage to bridges due to climate change and rising urbanisation. It is thus crucial to understand how different bridge types suffer from flooding and how this may affect surrounding networks. Despite the large body of literature for seismic and hurricane taxonomies, few classifications exist for bridges at flood risk. In this work, existing global bridge classifications were reviewed in order to derive a bridge–flood taxonomy. The review revealed that existing studies mainly classify bridges according to the superstructure material, whereas subclasses consider superstructure and substructure components. A taxonomy of 20 attributes for riverine roadway bridges susceptible to flood hazards is proposed in this paper. Its applicability for three bridge datasets in the UK was verified. The results showed that the considered datasets have data for 13 attributes, which can be used to derive regional bridge classes. In general, the taxonomy is functional for standardising different bridge datasets and applying/developing damage models for given bridge portfolios of flood-prone countries. Future works could apply the taxonomy to additional bridge datasets within a network for risk assessments; the proposed taxonomy could also be extended to allow integration with functionality and restoration models. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Flooding is one of the UK's biggest risks, and changes to our climate with predictions of warmer, wetter and stormier winters will increase the risk further. The Environment Agency's National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England (2020) sets out ambitions to create climate resilience places and infrastructure for today's and tomorrow's climate. It works to the vision of 'a nation ready for, and resilient to, flooding and coastal change — today, tomorrow and to the year 2100'. Among many objectives set out, the strategy commits risk management authorities to mainstream the use and take-up of property flood resilience (PFR) — that is, those measures that aim to reduce the amount of water entering a property, and those adaptations that can be made to reduce damage if it does enter. The PFR sector has evolved over the last decade with varying success, limited uptake and perceptions of 'failure' through poor workmanship and an absence of guidance. In 2021 a new Code of Practice (CoP) was published, providing guidance on six standards: hazard assessment, property survey, options development, construction, commissioning and handover, and operation and maintenance. This paper explores the objective of the Code, its benefits and limitation, highlighting that while the Code remains voluntary, growing awareness and application by risk management authorities such as the Environment Agency (EA) and lead local flood authorities will help drive up standards. Consistent delivery to acceptable standards will meet homeowner and insurer needs, thereby building a body of evidence of successful delivery and outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

International assessments of evidence on climate change (e.g. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, IPCC) or national climate change risk assessments (e.g. UK Climate Change Risk Assessment, CCRA) do not offer a sufficiently granular perspective on climate impacts to adequately inform governance of resilience to climate risks at the local level. Using an analysis of UK decision-makers managing and responding to heatwaves and flood risks, this paper argues how more robust local evidence is needed to inform decision-making regarding adaptation options for enhancing local resilience. We identify evidence gaps and issues relating to local climate change impacts, including sources and quality of evidence used, adequacy and accessibility of evidence available, ill-communicated evidence and conflicting or misused evidence. A lack of appreciation regarding how scientific evidence and personal judgement can mutually enhance the quality of decision-making underpins all of these gaps. Additionally, we find that the majority of evidence currently used is reductively based upon socio-economic and physical characteristics of climate risks. We argue that a step change is needed in local climate resilience that moves beyond current physical and socio-economic risk characterisation to a more inclusive co-constitution of social and politically defined climate risks at the local scale that are better aligned with the local impacts felt and needs of stakeholders. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managing urban flood risk is a key global challenge of the twenty-first century. Drivers of future UK flood risk were identified and assessed by the Flood Foresight project in 2002–2004 and 2008; envisaging flood risk during the 2050s and 2080s under a range of scenarios for climate change and socio-economic development. This paper qualitatively reassesses and updates these drivers, using empirical evidence and advances in flood risk science, technology and practice gained since 2008. Of the original drivers, five have strengthened, three have weakened and 14 remain within their 2008 uncertainty bands. Rainfall, as impacted by climate change, is the leading source driver of future urban flood risk. Intra-urban asset deterioration, leading to increases in a range of consequential flood risks, is the primary pathway driver. Social impacts (risk to life and health, and the intangible impacts of flooding on communities) and continued capital investment in buildings and contents (leading to greater losses when newer buildings of higher economic worth are inundated) have strengthened as receptor drivers of urban flood risk. Further, we propose two new drivers: loss of floodable urban spaces and indirect economic impacts, which we suggest may have significant impacts on future urban flood risk. This article is part of the theme issue 'Urban flood resilience'. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

• Analyse the impact of climate change on road transport systems. • Develop a risk prediction tool to reduce climate impact on roads. • Conduct economic analysis of various measures to reduce climate impact on roads. • Conduct an empirical study to provide useful insights for rational risk based climate adaptation. This paper aims to analyse the impacts of climate change to the current and predicted future situations of road transportation in the UK and evaluate the corresponding adaptation plans to cope with them. A conceptual framework of long-term adaptation planning for climate change in road systems is proposed to ensure the resilience and sustainability of road transport systems under various climate risks such as flooding and increased temperature. To do so, an advanced Fuzzy Bayesian Reasoning (FBR) model is first employed to evaluate the climate risks in the UK road transport networks. This modelling approach can tackle the high uncertainty in risk data and thus facilitate the development of the climate adaptation framework and its application in the UK road sector. To examine the feasibility of this model, a nationwide survey is conducted among the stakeholders to analyse the climate risks, in terms of the timeframe of climate threats, the likelihood of occurrence, the severity of consequences, and infrastructure resilience. From the modelling perspective, this work brings novelty by expanding the risk attribute "the severity of consequence" into three sub-attributes including economic loss, damage to the environment, and injuries and/or loss of life. It advances the-state-of-the-art technique in the current relevant literature from a single to multiple tier climate risk modelling structure. Secondly, an Evidential Reasoning (ER) approach is used to prioritise the best adaptation measure(s) by considering both the risk analysis results from the FBR and the implementation costs simultaneously. The main new contributions of this part lie in the rich raw data collected from the real world to provide useful practical insights for achieving road resilience when facing increasing climate risk challenges. During this process, a qualitative analysis of several national reports regarding the impacts posed by climate change, risk assessment and adaptation measures in the UK road sector is conducted for the relevant decision data (i.e. risk and cost). It is also supplemented by an in-depth interview with a senior planner from Highways England. The findings provide road planners and decision makers with useful insights on identification and prioritisation of climate threats as well as selection of cost-effective climate adaptation measures to rationalise adaptation planning. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract In order to assess the potential future impacts of climate change on urban areas, tools to assist decision-makers to understand future patterns of risk are required. This paper presents a modelling framework to allow the downscaling of national- and regional-scale population and employment projections to local scale land-use changes, providing scenarios of future socio-economic change. A coupled spatial interaction population model and cellular automata land development model produces future urbanisation maps based on planning policy scenarios. The framework is demonstrated on Greater London, UK, with a set of future population and land-use scenarios being tested against flood risk under climate change. The framework is developed in Python using open-source databases and is designed to be transferable to other cities worldwide. Highlights • Urban climate impacts must consider processes of socio-economic change alongside climate change. • A multi-scale modelling framework for climate impact assessment is presented and applied to London, UK. • Flood risk will increase with future climate change and socio-economic change may increase risk and impacts. • Potential adaptation options have trade-offs and co-benefits that can be assessed with the framework. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Multisectoral partnerships are increasingly cited as a mechanism to deliver and improve disaster risk management. Yet, partnerships are not a panacea and more research is required to understand the role that they can play in disaster risk management and particularly disaster risk reduction. This paper investigates how partnerships can incentivise flood risk reduction by focusing on the UK public-private partnership on flood insurance. Developing the right flood insurance arrangements to incentivise flood risk reduction and adaptation to climate change is a key challenge. In the face of rising flood risks due to climate change and socio-economic development insurance partnerships can no longer afford to focus only on the risk transfer function. However, while expectations of the insurance industry have traditionally been high when it comes to flood risk management, the insurance industry alone will not provide the solution to the challenge of rising risks. The case of flood insurance in the UK illustrates this: even national government and industry together cannot fully address these risks and other actors need to be involved to create strong incentives for risk reduction. Using an agent-based model focused on surface water flood risk in London we analyse how other partners could strengthen the insurance partnership by reducing flood risk and thus helping to maintain affordable insurance premiums. Our findings are relevant for wider discussions on the potential of insurance schemes to incentivise flood risk management and climate adaptation in the UK and also internationally. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Much flood risk management (FRM) research has examined the predicted increased burden of risk from future climate change. In contrast, this paper examines the changing funding regime for FRM and arrangements for flood insurance in the UK today. These changes, after the 1998–2013 period of severe and repeated flooding, may considerably increase the burden for at-risk households, but affect different groups differently, raising the question as to how to manage the risk and who should pay for this risk management. We explore this through scenarios incorporating modelled changes both to government investment to reduce risk and to flood insurance. The key findings are that moving towards a more risk-based approach could move the burden hugely, particularly onto financially deprived at-risk households, such that both investment and insurance could be unaffordable or unavailable. As insurance becomes more risk based, deprived households are less likely to purchase cover, but higher costs might incentivise those at risk to adapt to the risk they face. In the end, society has to decide whether to promote more substantial incentives discouraging occupation of the floodplain, with the likely adverse consequences for those there who are financially deprived, or retain the current discouragement of self-help. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In the UK, a disparity exists between modelled future weather/climatic patterns and the assessment of climate change impact on flood risk in the UK statutory planning process. Specifically, the impacts of climate change on the physical characteristics of a river catchment (e.g. land-use change, vegetation cover, soil moisture) are not considered when generating climate change weighted design flood events to assess the potential impact of flooding on a development in the future. Instead, a UK-wide averaged perturbation factor is applied. In this paper, a method is tested to integrate climate change data from UK climate projections 2009 (UKCP09) into design flood estimation methods (ReFH) as part of the current planning process. Scenarios are developed for a single, critical duration, 1% probability (1-in-100 year) design flood event that reflects plausible changes in catchment physical parameters in the 2080s. Initial results suggest that a 1-in-100 year storm in the 2080s may be greater in magnitude, rise and recede faster, and be associated with greater depths of flooding than predicted using current flood risk assessment frameworks in the UK. This information could provide new information to help developers choose more sustainable, flood-resistant and resilient designs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Summary: This paper presents a novel framework for undertaking climate change impact studies, which can be used for testing the robustness of precautionary climate change allowances used in engineering design. It is illustrated with respect to fluvial flood risk in the UK. The methodology departs from conventional scenario-led impact studies because it is based on sensitivity analyses of catchment responses to a plausible range of climate changes (rather than the time-varying outcome of individual scenarios), making it scenario-neutral. The method involves separating the climate change projections (the hazard) from the catchment responsiveness (the vulnerability) expressed as changes in peak flows. By combining current understanding of likelihood of the climate change hazard with knowledge of the sensitivity of a given catchment, it is possible to evaluate the fraction of climate model projections that would not be accommodated by specified safety margins. This enables rapid appraisal of existing or new precautionary allowances for a set of climate change projections, but also for any new set of climate change projections for example arising from a new generation of climate models as soon as they are available, or when focusing on a different planning time horizon, without the need for undertaking a new climate change impact analysis with the new scenarios. The approach is demonstrated via an assessment of the UK Government’s 20% allowance for climate change applied in two contrasting catchments. In these exemplars, the allowance defends against the majority of sampled climate projections for the 2080s from the IPCC-AR4 GCM and UKCP09 RCM runs but it is still possible to identify a sub-set of regional scenarios that would exceed the 20% threshold. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]