Planning for floods

Floods are our most damaging and frequent natural hazard. Strategic flood risk assessments give the essential overview needed to guide development choices.

Given the significance of floods as a hazard, flood risk assessment is crucial to spatial planning, determining both …

It’s a rollercoaster!

Managing the risk of coastal flooding is a hugely complex challenge. Greater statistical analysis is needed to guide design standards for defences.

A sea of troubles

Communities have made their homes in coastal locations around the UK for centuries. They …

Once more unto the breach

Llanfairfechan and the Kinmel Bay area have been flooded in recent decades, with coastal defences overwhelmed. WHS studied the risks for the future.

Please click here to watch a video of the flooding of Towyn, North Wales in 1990:

Conwy

Take a drain check

Issued: June 2017

Successful site development is dependent on drainage. Step by step, a number of things must be borne in mind.

Discharge points

Identifying the discharge points for both foul and surface water leaving a site is essential in …

Wellbeing for Wales

In April 2015, the Well-being of Future Generations Act (FGA) came into law to create a Wales that people want to live in, now and in the future.

The FGA was the first legislation in the world to link with …

The great ripple

Issued: March 2017

What will Brexit mean for the environment?

On 1 February 2017, MPs voted to allow Theresa May to invoke Article 50 and begin Brexit negotiations. Most of our environmental law is based on EU law, so there …

All change ahead

A victory for common sense with flood mapping in Wales

The Welsh Development Advice Map is to come alive. In April 2017 it is due to be aligned with the Natural Resources Wales flood map. Regular updates in future will …

​Scottish flood risk management

Issued: April 2016

Flooding in Scotland has the potential to affect one in 13 businesses and one in 22 homes. The central belt, traditionally Scotland’s industrial and residential heart, is at the greatest risk.

New plans to manage risk

The …

Services for the public sector. Fast and simple.

Issued: June 2016

The National Procurement Service (NPS) Framework for Wales enables the public sector to procure environmental and flood risk services rapidly and efficiently.

What is the NPS Framework achieving?

Wales has unique flood risk and planning policy challenges. …

Leading by example – the SuDS manual in Wales

Issued: June 2016

Six months on from its release, it is still early days for the latest CIRIA SuDS manual and associated non-statutory guidance. Wales is leading the way in their holistic approach to its use.

Why is the SuDS