National Flood Resilience Strategy

Executive Summary

Flooding is Scotland’s biggest domestic climate adaptation challenge.

Floods like we saw in the east of Scotland in October 2023 during Storm Babet show that global warming is already influencing weather events here at home. Over the coming decades we will see greater economic, social and environmental impacts as sea levels, rainfall intensities and river flows increase as a result of climate change. By 2080 the number of properties at risk of flooding in Scotland will rise from 284,000 to almost 400,000.

This Strategy, part of The Scottish National Adaptation Plan 2024-2029, Actions today, for a climate resilient future (SNAP3), is in direct response to the climate emergency and the imperative to address the challenges that we face.

Focusing on building community flood resilience and resilient placemaking, it puts people at the heart of the process and supports an increase in the range and rate of delivery of actions both to manage our flood exposure, and to reduce the impacts of flooding when it does occur.

The Strategy supports a flood resilient places approach, recognising that reducing the impacts of flooding is as much about the design of our places as it is about the design of specific flood actions.

We are already seeing climate-positive actions shaping our rural landscapes and our urban areas as we adapt to reduce our emissions, increase our resilience and provide other community and environmental benefits. The case studies throughout the Strategy, and in the accompanying case study document, provide a range of examples of this.

Vision

The Strategy sets out a vision for a flood resilient Scotland through to 2045 and beyond:

Our people and places are prepared for increased flooding and we are adapting to a changing climate and creating sustainable resilient places in ways that are inclusive and fair.

The Strategy is structured around the themes of People, Places and Processes and sets out our Outcomes, the Guiding Principles we will work to and our Priority Actions.

Outcomes

The Strategy has three Outcomes based on the themes of People, Places and Processes. Each of these is considered as to how they can contribute to our flood resilience.

People Outcome

Creating flood resilient places involves our people and communities.

We will work with partners to explore how people and communities can be sufficiently informed and supported to be involved in flood resilience decision making and so contribute to their own flood resilience.

Places Outcome

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

We will work with partners to explore how our places can contribute to our flood resilience.

Processes Outcome

Flood resilience is blended into our places at all scales; a broader range of actions are being delivered by a broader range of delivery partners.

We will work with partners to develop our processes to improve our flood resilience.

Guiding Principles

The four guiding principles laid out in the Strategy will help us to make the most of all the resources available to us. They will help embed flood resilience into climate adaptation and placemaking and engage as many contributors as possible to deliver as broad a range of actions as possible.

• The scale of the challenge means that the focus of action will change from ‘fixing flooding problems’ to creating flood resilient places.
• Flood resilience is part of community resilience and part of adapting to climate change.
• At the heart of our flood resilience activities will lie the principles of a Just Transition (to secure a fairer, greener future for all by working in partnership to deliver fairness and tackle inequality and injustice).
• Everyone benefits from flood resilient places, and we all have a contribution to make.

Priority Actions

To support the delivery of our outcomes we have identified six priority areas for action that we will take forward with partners through a strategy implementation plan.

Establish a flood advisory service

The Flood Advisory Service will provide support and advice on building flood resilience to delivery partners and communities and provide the governance framework and gateway process for progressing high value flood actions such as flood protection schemes.

Involve and support communities

This will include creating a framework for supporting communities in their flood resilience journey and encouraging and supporting actions by individuals to improve their own flood resilience and that of their community.

Improve land-use for flood mitigation

Develop our understanding of how our urban and rural landscapes can be adapted to increase our flood resilience. Seek urban and rural land-use opportunities to improve our flood resilience and expand our range of delivery partners to include others whose activities can contribute to our flood resilience.

Support a broader range of flood actions

We will review available flooding budgets to assess how a proportion of flood funding can be directed to support a broader range of flood actions including smaller flood protection schemes and property level flood resilience.

We will seek new flood resilience partners across the public, private and third sector and seek to influence policy across sectors who can contribute to creating flood resilient places.

Improve flood resilience through data

We will work with partners to review how we can improve our presentation and use of data to drive flood resilient activity including developing new datasets to improve decision making.

We will use data to raise community awareness of current and future flood exposure to support communities on their climate adaptation journeys.

Support long-term transition planning for our most exposed communities

We will support those communities where it may not be possible to maintain a level of flood resilience indefinitely with long-term transition planning. We will explore how coastal storm damage could be better forecast and warned for and determine 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 to support decision making.

Strategy Implementation

Achieving our outcomes and realising the Flood Resilience Strategy vision will depend on establishing a new level of cross-sector collaboration.

The next stage will be to develop the Strategy implementation plan that backs the vision and enables the Scottish Government and our partners to work together to deliver actions supporting our People, Places and Processes outcomes.

This will include taking forward policy development for the six priority action areas starting with the establishment of the Flood Advisory Service. This service will be the cornerstone of the flood resilient places approach.