National Flood Resilience Strategy

Outcome Two: Places

Land management and placemaking decisions follow good practice for flood resilience.

This outcome focuses on how our places can contribute to our flood resilience. Reaching a sustainable level of flood resilience for communities at risk from flooding or coastal change will allow them to continue to thrive and to support sustainable economic activity. Achieving this will require significant changes to their places over the longer term.

What’s already happening

• Adapting to climate change is at the heart of the Scottish Government’s mission to improve the wellbeing of people living in Scotland, now and in the future. This includes considering how all our activities can be adapted to make a positive contribution to our climate resilience.
• We are witnessing changes to our urban and rural landscapes reflecting the role that land and our land based activities have in helping us address the climate and nature crises. Land use and planning policy is being strengthened to ensure we are adapting to climate change and not adding to the climate challenge for future generations.
• This Strategy is a key component of The Scottish National Adaptation Plan 2024-2029 (SNAP3) helping to deliver SNAP3 objectives on nature based solutions, community resilience and development planning.
• Scotland’s Fourth National Planning Framework (NPF4) supports flood resilience for our places through Policy 10 on protecting coastal communities and assets and support resilience to the impacts of climate change, Policy 20 on protecting and enhancing blue and green infrastructure and their networks and Policy 22 on strengthening flood resilience.
• Scotland’s National Marine Plan supports flood resilience for our places through General Policy 8 on coastal processes and flooding. It sets out considerations for location, design and potential impacts of coastal infrastructure or developments, and the need to use best available data and evidence, to guide decision-making. The Plan also reiterates the need for alignment across Regional Marine Plans and terrestrial Development Plans to build coastal resilience for the inshore regions.
• The Place Standard with a Climate Lens supports flood resilient places. It has been developed to help people understand how climate change might play out in a local area and support them to design their future place with climate in mind.
• Through our Agricultural Reform Programme, we are considering how farmers can be supported to make changes to handle extremes in water availability; for example, through improving soil management practices and planting trees.
• We will continue to work with stakeholders to make the most of existing financial support for farmers to adapt for the good of the farm itself, and the wider public good, as well as exploring opportunities offered by the Agricultural Reform Programme.
• Scottish Government’s ambition is to expand woodland cover to 21% of Scotland by 2032 and supports tree planting through the Forestry Grant Scheme. This support is only provided where UK Forestry Standard requirements are met, which includes forest design and management guidance to reduce flood risk. The Forestry Grant Scheme offers enhanced payment rates for targeted areas where riparian woodlands can have multiple benefits, including flood management.
• The Scottish Government has committed £250 million over 10 years to restore 250,000 hectares of degraded peatlands by 2030. Peatlands in good condition provide many benefits: capturing and storing carbon, supporting nature, reducing risks of flooding and wildfires, and improving water quality.

The examples below showcase some of the changes we are seeing in our urban and rural landscapes that are contributing to flood resilient places and highlight the importance of SEPA’s flood forecasting and warning service in preparing for and responding to floods.

Case Study: Eddleston Water case study.

The Eddleston Water project is a unique long-term study investigating the effectiveness of natural flood management (NFM) techniques and habitat restoration measures at a catchment scale. A series of measures have been introduced which enhance flood resilience through the restoration of natural processes that slow water flows and increase the amount of water stored in the landscape.

Working closely with 22 landowners, a wide range of NFM measures were implemented across the 69km² catchment. This includes planting more than 330,000 native trees in the headwaters and along the riverbanks; placement of 115 engineered log-structures to slow the flow; creation of 38 temporary flood storage ponds; and re-meandering 3.5km of historically straightened river channels reconnecting it with the floodplain.

Underpinned by extensive activities designed to collect data and provide hydrological information, using both observed and recorded data, the findings suggest that NFM effectiveness works well in small catchments and at lower levels of flood intensity.

Cost-benefit analysis was carried out to evaluate the efficiency and desirability of such NFM projects. The findings suggest NFM can provide good value for money and be implemented alongside other structural flood protection measures. In this instance, they delivered a minimum of £950k present value (PV) from flood damages avoided downstream; a figure that can be doubled to account for other damages and recovery costs, and an additional £4.4million PV from biodiversity, carbon management, water quality, recreation and other benefits.

Case Study: Croftfoot Primary School SuDS retrofits

Retrofit sustainable drainage measures have been introduced into a school playground at Croftfoot Primary School in Glasgow, managing flows which were previously directed to the sewer network. As well as managing flood risk, the wider surface water management measures have also delivered benefits to local communities through the creation of amenity space and improved biodiversity.

A swale has been formed at the school to collect runoff from the playground area, and new drainage introduced to gather runoff from roof downpipes, all of which is conveyed to below a new multi-use games area (MUGA). The MUGA has a permeable surface and storage below it to attenuate the surface water runoff, prior to discharge to the Spittal Burn culvert on Croftpark Avenue. By diverting rainwater from the combined sewer, the risk of sewer flooding in the lower catchment is reduced and drainage capacity is created to facilitate regeneration.

An outdoor amphitheatre area has also been formed, a feature which combines sustainable drainage with flexible play space. This brings together an outdoor learning area for pupils with a storage area which provides additional capacity during large storms when the storage under the MUGA is exceeded. Once the storm event passes, the amphitheatre drains down by gravity over the course of a number of hours.

The project has provided the opportunity for Glasgow City Council to engage with local students and to create a fun learning experience, whilst ensuring they understand the multiple benefits of these innovative solutions.

Case Study: Flood forecasting and warning

SEPA is the Flood Forecasting and Warning Authority in Scotland. Working in partnership with the Met Office, SEPA produces a range of products to give advanced notice of flooding impacts across Scotland. The Met Office and SEPA jointly produce a daily Flood Guidance Statement, giving responder organisations an early heads up to potential flooding up to 5 days ahead.

Since February 2023 a public version of the daily guidance is shared publicly on SEPA website. The Scottish Flood Forecast provides a 3-day flooding outlook to give an early heads up of potential flooding to communities. This allows everyone to see what is forecast and plan ahead.

People who are registered with SEPA’s Floodline service can receive Regional Flood Alerts, indicating that flooding is possible, up to 48 hours in advance of potential impacts. Notifications of Alerts can be received by telephone, SMS and email.

Local Flood Warnings cover smaller, more targeted areas and warn that flooding is expected. The messages provide information about the local extent of flooding (e.g. which street may be affected) and timing. They give communities time to prepare and take action, such as avoiding travel and putting in place property level protection. Many communities have developed resilience groups who use this information and have active groups on social media to share local information.

Our response to the climate emergency is already driving land management and placemaking decisions that are changing the look and feel of our urban and rural landscapes. However, we need to ensure we are taking all available opportunities to manage our land to reduce the impacts of flooding and coastal change. We must use land assets and natural processes to reduce the risk of flooding as well as avoiding development and redevelopment in areas that flood as a first principle and reducing the vulnerability of existing and future development to flooding and coastal change as required by our National Planning Framework (NPF4) and National Marine Plan. By following the Place Principle supported by Scottish Government we will seek to ensure that flooding is routinely taken into account in the design of our places^[13].

We must also take the opportunities presented by other initiatives to deliver multiple benefits for our places. For example, making space for water^[14] and introducing blue and green infrastructure into our towns and cities brings improvements including flood resilience, biodiversity, water resource management and well-being. Peatland restoration, river restoration and biodiversity improvement projects can contribute to flood resilience too if appropriately designed.

The role of nature and blue-green infrastructure in flood resilience

The Scottish National Adaptation Plan 3 (SNAP3) and The Scottish Biodiversity Strategy to 2045 set out the importance of healthy, resilient, biodiverse ecosystems in helping us adapt to the changing climate. This is because nature provides many regulating services including those that can help us manage floods.

Nature-based solutions as such have a central role in creating flood resilient places across Scotland. ‘Blue-green infrastructure’ is a subset of nature-based solutions. It is the green and blue features of natural and built environments and the connections between them that provide benefits for people and the natural environment.

• Green features include parks, woodlands, trees, play spaces, allotments, community growing spaces, outdoor sports facilities, churchyards and cemeteries, swales, hedges, verges, green roofs and gardens.
• Blue features include oceans, rivers, lochs, burns, wetlands, floodplains, canals, ponds, porous paving and sustainable urban drainage systems.
• Paths, cycleways and blue corridors such as rivers or canal paths provide connections through and between areas of green infrastructure.

98% of responders to the Flood Resilience Strategy consultation agree that there is a need to make space for water to improve the flood resilience of our villages, towns and cities. A majority of responders also supported increased use of sustainable drainage systems and blue and green drainage networks to reduce the impacts of surface water flooding.

Scottish Government and our partners will take opportunities to improve flood resilience through land-use planning, land management activities and the design of our urban fabric and infrastructure.

This will include:

• Avoiding development and redevelopment in areas at flood risk as a first principle.
• Ensuring flood resilience is considered as part of our urban fabric and infrastructure design.
• Making space for water in rural and urban areas.
• Increasing blue and green infrastructure in urban areas.
• Increasing natural flood management where beneficial to do so.
• Promoting good practice for water management and flood resilience to land. managers and land users including the agriculture and forestry sector.
• Increasing peatland restoration.

The Places Actions in this strategy will build on this. Our aim is to work with partners to explore how our rural and urban places can contribute to our flood resilience.

We will do this by:

• Improving land use for flood mitigation:
  • Developing our understanding of how our urban and rural landscapes can be adapted to increase our flood resilience. For example: how we can make more use of our natural capital such as peatland and forestry to help mitigate flooding impacts and how space can be made in urban areas for more blue and green infrastructure to manage rainfall.
  • Avoiding development and redevelopment in areas at flood risk as a first principle.
  • Supporting new development and redevelopment where it contributes to the flood resilience of our places.
  • Seeking new delivery partners whose activities can contribute to our flood resilience.
  • Seeking urban and rural land-use opportunities to improve our flood resilience.
  • Developing policy for rainwater drainage networks. Scottish Government is developing policy to improve the management of rainwater in urban areas through strategic drainage networks designed for now and our future climate.
  • Investigating how mechanisms such as the Agricultural Reform Programme could contribute to Scotland’s flood resilience and coastal change adaptation. For example, by supporting farmers and land managers to optimise the natural hydrological and hydraulic services provided by land, river networks and coastal zones.
• Supporting long-term transition planning for our most exposed communities:
  • Supporting those communities where it may not be possible to maintain a level of flood resilience indefinitely with long-term transition planning.
  • Exploring how coastal storm damage could be better forecast and warned for.
  • Identifying the most efficient and effective way to establish a national coastal monitoring programme to ensure that up to date information on coastal change is collected, analysed and made available.

90% of responders to the Flood Resilience Strategy public consultation agreed that consideration should be given to exploring how communities can be supported to plan for managed retreat from areas with the highest flood exposure where other options were not feasible.