And with the floods come...all the same debates

In a former life I was a civil engineer, as my first journalism job was for a civil engineering magazine. One of my specialisms was flooding, and I was often sent out to report on various significant floods that happened from 2000 onwards. This meant I spoke frequently to the Environment Agency, engineering firms who built and maintained defences, and councils who were at the heart of emergency planning.

The issues that they talked about; problems with building too many homes on floodplains, the need for better flood early warning systems, changing climates, the lack of investment in flood defences, and the need for better drainage (sustainable urban drainage was all the rage then), are exactly the same which now appear to be making the news this week.

It makes me wonder: how far have we really progressed?

Surely the debate we should be having over and above all of this is, how prepared are we culturally - if indeed this flooding is an effect of climate change - to accept and adapt to our changing weather?

Adaptation and mitigation are two different prongs to coping with climate change, and the wisest councils are looking at both. But how well are councils and central government leading a mirror debate with their communities on the wider impacts? That is, do their residents accept that in the coming years they must also adapt their lives and decisions to cope with climate change?

At the moment the idea of living in an area at significant risk of flooding would for many people be a completely unacceptable concept. Understandably so - I've been to enough flooded homes to know it is far from pleasant. But if flooding is to become a common feature for some areas and particularly the more southern areas where homes are already under pressure some residents may have to learn to live with it or accept they must leave some areas entirely.

But are people prepared to live in a floodplain, perhaps in an cheaper but adapted house - houses on stilts are actually being designed already for some areas - than miles away from a conurbation in a house which is risk-free? And how prepared are those who live by the coast to accept that one day their home could be totally submerged, and for the government to shell out millions for a flood defence system to save but a clutch of homes is just not the best use of tax payers money?

Already some homes are built with an expectation of floods - main living areas are on the first floor, and electric plugs are fitted halfway up the wall. But are people prepared to wash down their ground floors every few months in the same way they might wash their car?

The debate needs to move on and it must involve residents, or in five years time we'll still be talking about the cost of flood defence rather than the real issue for debate; that climate change looks as if it's swiftly moved from hazy concept to muddy, unpleasant reality.

Nina Lovelace, acting editor