Why does climate change affect flood risk?
PPS25 stresses that there is an increasing body of scientific evidence that the global climate is changing as a result of human activity. The impact of climate change at a regional level is likely to be variable: for the UK, projection of future climate change suggests that more frequent, high intensity rainfall and periods of long-duration rainfall of the type responsible for the 2000 floods could be expected. As a result, the Environment Agency (EA) recommends to increase river flows by up to 20% to today’s level to account for the effect of climate change on flood risk.
