Following the major flood recent flood events in the UK (summer 2007, 2008 and autumn 2009), significant developments have emerged in weather forecasting, flood warning and dissemination. These include the new Scottish Flood Forecasting Service provided by the Met Office and SEPA to give advance warning of weather conditions likely to lead to flooding. Direct dissemination of flood warnings to the public is becoming more widely available in Scotland through Floodline Warnings Direct. Questions remain: how do emergency plans best adapt to new advance forecasting, including severe weather warnings and risk-based approaches? How do police forces best co-ordinate with other groups (notably SEPA, the Met Office, the other emergency responders as well the public) in response to flood emergencies of varying scale, including during the recovery phase? The focus of this Workshop was on learning from past events, current practice, and looking to the future.

Programme and Outputs A Report on the Workshop – by Tom Ball [204 Kb]

Dr Tom Ball (University of Dundee) and Professor Nick Fyfe (Director, SIPR) Welcome and Opening Comments
Podcast – 9 Minutes [8.8 Mb]

Session 1 Floods: Forecasting, Warning and Dissemination Chair: Dr Tom Ball (University of Dundee)

• Michael Cranston (SEPA) Developments in flood forecasting and warning
  PowerPoint slides [7.6 Mb]
• Peter Buchanan (Met Office) and Richard Maxey (SEPA) Scottish Flood Forecasting Service – state of the art hydrological and meteorological developments
  PowerPoint slides [7.68 Mb]
• Alan Motion (Met Office) Climate impact risk frameworks
  PowerPoint slides [3.6 Mb]

Session 2 Flood Emergency Response Chair: Dr Tom Ball (University of Dundee)

• Stephen Woodhouse (Scottish Government Resilience Division) Planning for resilience to severe flooding in Scotland
  PowerPoint slides [178 Kb]
• Supt Ian Birnie (Grampian Police) and Inspector Paul Scobbie (Tayside Police) The Police role and joint working in emergency response, lessons learned from events, use of forecast data in emergency planning, experience/ examples
  PowerPoint slides [361 Kb]
• Diane Jackson and David Snaith (Environment Agency) Experience with interagency co-ordination and use of information sources during floods in the NW of England
  PowerPoint slides [5.64 Mb]

Session 3 From Response to Recovery Chair: Dr Tom Ball (University of Dundee)

• Jim Gill (EPS, Scottish Borders Council) Experience of direct dissemination of flood warnings to the public and working with emergency services to build community resilience
  PDF of slides [1.2 Mb]
• Paul Hendy (Scottish Flood Forum) Reducing impact on communities and businesses and securing recovery
  PowerPoint slides [3.39 Mb]

Plenary discussion Chair: Prof. Chris Spray (IHP-UNESCO Centre for Water Law, Policy and Science, University of Dundee)

• Facilitators: Joss Rouillard, David McCollum and Ed Hall (University of Dundee) Reports from the Breakout Group discussions on sharing good practice, and what gaps there are which need to be filled

Flood Emergencies Workshop, 21/06/11

Breakout groups

Breakout groups

Breakout groups