home > improving flood performance
 |
New guidance is now available ‘Improving the flood performance of new buildings- flood resilient construction’ This document aims to provide guidance to developers and designers on how to improve the resilience of new properties in low or residual flood risk areas by the use of suitable materials and construction details. These approaches are appropriate for areas where the probability of flooding is low (e.g. flood zone 1 as defined by PPS 25) or areas where flood risk management or mitigation measures have been put in place. The guidance will also be useful to planners, building control officers and loss adjusters.
Specifically this guidance document provides:
There is a plethora of guidance available on preparing for floods and on the repair of property after a flood; but in large this has been anecdotal and based mainly on opinion and experience gained in the repair of existing buildings which have been flooded. The recently completed research project Improving the flood resilience of buildings through improved materials, methods and details investigated flood resilient and flood resistant construction using laboratory testing and other quantitative and qualitative analysis to further develop the evidence base to support future recommendations, guidance and policy.
This evidence resulted in strategies and advice for resilient design that could complement the results of flood risk assessments. Developers and designers can consider whether they should use a water exclusion strategy, a water entry strategy (or a combination of both) depending on the expected flooding depth and velocity, structural considerations and on the vulnerability of the occupants.
This work is part of the Making Space for Water: Increasing resilience to flooding theme and was carried out under the Department for Communities and Local Government Buildings Regulations (Sanitation) Research Framework, and the Defra/Environment Agency Flood Risk Management Research and Development programme with additional funding from NHBC, Scottish Building Standards Agency, English Partnerships, Concrete Block Association, Council for Mortgage Lenders, and CIRIA Core members.
It was carried out by a consortium managed by CIRIA and comprising HRW, Leeds Metropolitan University, WRc and Waterman Group, and guided by a PSG comprising the funders and other key stakeholders. A wide variety of individuals and organisations also contributed their information, expertise and time to feed into the research and review the final outputs.
Buy the final guidance document ‘Improving the flood performance of new buildings- flood resilient construction’ here (opens new window).
It can also be downloaded from http://www.planningportal.gov.uk/uploads/br/flood_performance.pdf (opens new window).
Further information may be found in the following project reports (opens new window):