Regional impact assessment of flooding under future climate and socio-economic scenarios for East Anglia and North West England

Interactive tools developed within the RegIS project for assessing the impacts of flooding provide information to support flood management policies and analyse the performance of possible adaptation activities to climate change. This paper describes the methodologies used in the development of these tools including tidal and fluvial flooding processes with different levels of climate pressures, represented by changes in sea level and peak river flows. Potential impacts of climate change for East Anglia and North West England are explored to the 2050s using four socio-economic scenarios to represent plausible futures. This includes changes in urban land use as well as adaptive responses to flooding comprising dike upgrade and realignment options. The results indicate that future climate will increase flood risk in both regions. East Anglia is more vulnerable to climate change than North West England at the present level of protection, especially in the extensive coastal lowlands of the Fens and Broads because of the combined effects of sea-level rise and increased fluvial flows. Although the present adaptive policy of upgrading defences in East Anglia will reduce the impacts of flooding, this policy is not effective in the case of the more extreme climate change scenarios by 2050s. In this case, more extensive adaptation would be required.