This week, the Environment Agency hosted the Flood and Coast Excellence Awards. These celebrate some of the most innovative and impactful flood and coastal erosion risk management projects from across the country writes Caroline Douglass, Environment Agency Executive Director of Flood and Coastal Risk Management.
It is a pleasure to reflect on the remarkable ingenuity and commitment of the nominees and winners to improving climate resilience, sustainability, and nature recovery.
Over 90 nominations were put forward for this year’s awards, each showcasing innovative approaches to climate resilience. The judges and I were impressed by the people getting involved in community-driven projects and collaborations across sectors. It was also fantastic to see several nominees and winners from projects under the Flood and Coastal Resilience Innovation Programme (FCRIP).
Amongst the key themes of this year’s winners are nature-based solutions, a focus on the development in community engagement, and surface water risk management, an area where the Environment Agency is committed to leaning in more to support others to plan and adapt to surface water flood risks.
The winners of each of the seven categories are:
- The ‘Climate Resilient Blue and Green Infrastructure’ award which recognises projects or programmes showcasing blue and green infrastructure that have achieved excellent benefits for flood and coastal resilience.
Winner: Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDs) for Schools, Department for Education Schools Commercial Team - The DfE Schools Water Strategy is an invest to save project aiming to reduce surface water flooding for schools across England.
- The ‘Climate Resilient Built Environment’ award recognises projects or programmes in the built environment that have achieved excellent resilience to flood and coastal change alongside their primary aim.
Winner: Mansfield Sustainable Flood Resilience (Phase 1), Arup - The largest sustainable drainage retrofit programme in the UK creating a number of nature-based solutions.
- The ‘Climate Resilient Places’ award recognises major flood and coastal erosion risk management projects that improve place-based resilience to flooding and coastal change in a changing climate.
Winner: Southsea Coastal Scheme (Frontage 1), Coastal Partners on behalf of Portsmouth City Council - The first phase of an innovative coastal management project and the largest local authority led scheme to help reduce coastal erosion.
- The ‘Community Action’ award recognises individuals and community groups who have engaged locally to help people to adapt and improve their resilience to flooding and coastal change.
Winner: Nottinghamshire County Council Community Flood Signage Scheme - A resilience scheme that promotes road safety during times of flooding by training members of the community to become Flood Signage Wardens. It currently has over 180 wardens active in 15 areas across Nottinghamshire.
- The ‘Digital Excellence’ award recognises the innovative use of digital solutions or technologies in improving resilience to flooding and coastal change.
Winner: Resilience and Innovation Northants (RAIN), West Northamptonshire Council – An innovative approach to delivering proactive, engaging flood resilience measures to the community. This project is one of the 25 initiatives under the Flood and Coastal Innovation Resilience Programme.
- The ‘Innovation and Resilience’ award recognises the use of innovative resilience solutions and technologies that are delivering benefits to a place-based resilience to flooding and coastal change.
Winner: Pioneering Flood Warning Expansion Project, Environment Agency
- The Flood Warning service provides 78,000 properties at risk of flooding with access to warnings, thanks to new innovative monitoring solutions.
- The ‘Early Career Professional’ award recognises an individual who is early on in their career and has already demonstrated a significant contribution to flood and coastal erosion risk management.
Winner: Anna Hastings, East Sussex County Council – Anna innovates through collaboration and seeks innovative solutions that drive positive change. She has also been instrumental in delivering the Blue Heart project, which focuses on property resilience measures, surface water risk solutions, and engaging young people in flood resilience. The project is part of the Flood and Coastal Innovation Resilience Programme.
The Environment Agency champions and celebrates projects like these that inspire us, share vital learning, and prioritise partnerships and collaboration, community involvement, sustainability, and forward-thinking solutions.
I want to thank all participants, nominees, judges, and winners for their exceptional contributions. Your work is not only safeguarding our present but also shaping a safer, more resilient future. Together, we are creating better and more resilient places for everyone.
1 comment
Comment by Neringa posted on
Fish, overfishing, subsidies are a long topic. Many species of water creatures become extinct just because of UNCONTROLLED overfishing abuse by multiple fishermen who care about money and nothing else. Overfishing is a huge problem. Enormous nets catch various water creatures – useful ones are being sold at markets, restaurants, supermarkets and the ones who have no commercial value (for example, rays and skates) are being thrown away. 99% (I don’t trust stupid numbers) of by-catch is thrown away. Horrible reality we all live in and do nothing about it. Idiots - biologists try to save baby sharks eggs from their dead mothers’ bodies and grow up them. For what? Instead of banning fishing by enormous nets and other horrible equipment, idiots create stupid methods (which are not natural and are against nature) to “solve” the problem. Start from the scratch. Ban fishing whatsoever for some time, let the nature do its cause and after some time we will have a good result. After water creatures’ population increase, we can think about a sustainable fishing using fishing rods ONLY. Let’s go back to basics, remember old methods of fishing and get rid of all nets and horrible equipment used for catching water creatures. I can easily survive without water creatures for the sake of their survival.