Issue 3: Flood Management

Newsline Media

ISSUES

• Expected increase in the severity and frequency of flooding through climate change;
• Costs of the impacts of flooding on infrastructure, property and land use;
• Costs and potential downstream implications of hard engineering flood protection schemes;
• Increased international recognition of the benefits of a catchment wide approach to flood risk management but lack of consensus on measures;
• Wider, multiple benefits of natural flood management measures;
• Broad opportunity areas for natural flood management identified at national level; and
• Opportunity to trial and demonstrate the benefits of natural flood management on an international basis.

www.cairngormlandscapes.co.uk

Annual maximum flow (AMAX) data for the River Spey at Grantown-on-Spey and River Dee at Polhollick, near Ballater

TARGETS / PREFERRED DIRECTION

• Reduced speed of water run-off from uplands;
• Creation of more diverse ecological environments;
• Integration of natural flood management techniques into other land management objectives;
• Safeguard functional flood plain and avoid inappropriate development in areas of high flood risk; and
• Effective flood defences where appropriate.

River catchment areas covering the Cairngorms National Park

MECHANISMS FOR DELIVERY

• Catchment partnerships and plans
• River basin planning
• Cairngorms Nature
• Flood Risk Management Strategies and Plans
• Development Plan
• Scottish Rural Development Programme funding
• Water Environment Fund

www.cairngormlandscapes.co.uk

Indicative river flooding extent (medium probability 1 in 200 years) and Potentially Vulnerable Areas

Reproduced by permission of Ordnance Survey on behalf of HMSO. © Crown copyright and database right 2016. All rights reserved. Ordnance Survey Licence number 100040965 Cairngorms National Park Authority. Contains SEPA data © Scottish Environment Protection Agency anddatabase right 2016. All rights reserved.

ISSUE 3 | KEY QUESTIONS

• What land use changes are needed to deliver more effective natural flood management and how can they be supported/funded?

• How can catchment management partnerships be better used to help deliver natural flood management as part of flood risk management?