New build homes, flood resilience and environmental justice – current and future trends under climate change across England and Wales
This research paper analyses the level of exposure to flooding for houses in England and Wales, and explores how future patterns would evolve under different climate scenarios using property level data on new homes built over the last decade and information on the socio-economic development of neighbourhoods.
Despite improvements in the management of flood risk and the introduction of new regulations, losses from flooding remain high. An important driver is the continuation of new assets being built in flood prone locations. Over the last decade over 120,000 new homes in England and Wales have been built in flood prone areas. While the yearly rates of new homes in flood risk areas have increased only moderately on the national level, significant differences between and within regions as well as between different flood types exist.
The paper finds that a disproportionately higher number of homes built in struggling or declining neighbourhoods between 2008 and 2018 is expected to end up in high flood risk areas over their lifetime as a result of climate change. Based on these findings, it discusses several issues regarding future spending on flood defences and affordability of private level flood protection as well as flood insurance in the face of climate change.