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Purpose – The Foresight Future Flooding (FFF) project researched flood risk in the UK to the year 2100 for central government, using scenarios and a national risk assessment model backed by qualitative analysis from panels of some 45 senior scientists. The purpose of this paper is to assess the impact of the project, both nationally and internationally.Design/methodology/approach – This paper assesses the impact of the FFF project, both nationally and internationally, using web searches, document analysis, and a questionnaire survey of key actors in the flood risk management policy field.Findings – It was found that the penetration of the project into professionals' consciousness was high in relation to other comparable projects and publications, and its impact on policy – both immediately and continuing – was profound. The FFF initiative did not create policy change, however, but facilitated its legitimation, adding impetus to what was already there, as one element of a part-catalytic and part-incremental process of policy evolution.Research limitations/implications – Special circumstances, internal and external to the project, mean that this cannot be a simple model for matching research to policymakers' needs in the future.Practical implications – Important lessons may be learnt from this project about both the methods of forward-looking foresight-type research, and the way that its results are disseminated to its target audiences.Originality/value – This is an innovative attempt to assess the impact of a new type of foresight project. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Integrated coastal zone management (ICZM) is a challenging process, defined by stakeholder engagement and underpinned by knowledge on the integrated behaviour of coastal systems. While significant advancements in ICZM have been made, a range of difficult and important questions about ‘integration’ remain to be explored. This paper discusses opportunities for addressing such challenges of integration through the application of geographical thinking to understanding and managing coastal environments. It focuses on geographical traditions on systems thinking, the process-based nature of geographic research and geographical contributions to conceptualising place and our relationships to it. Using UK-based case studies the paper explores integration challenges from three different coastal contexts and management perspectives, examining: adaptation through managed realignment in a local community, integrated flood risk management in London and the Thames Estuary and enhancing the ‘socially just’ nature of coastal management. The case-study discussion highlights the importance of ‘geographical thought’ to improving the integrative basis of strategies for managing complex coastal environments. This paper argues that ‘thinking geographically’ is one logical vehicle for increasing our understanding of, and providing solutions to, barriers which limit progress towards greater ‘integration’ in coastal management. Geography is dynamic, plural and based on the recognition that reality is contested and as such geographical ideas could add considerably to emerging cross-disciplinary knowledge on the interactions and interdependencies of behaviours within coastal systems. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Managed realignment often involves the construction of new sea walls at a location behind existing sea walls to create parcels of land that can be flooded to create new inter-tidal environments. It is employed in the UK to improve flood risk management within the context of flood risk management strategies, but so far most emphasis has focused upon creation of new wildlife habitat because this has been where the opportunities and funding have been found. Initial projects were relatively small in scale, but recent projects have been much larger. Scaling up the size of realignments introduces a variety of additional engineering and social challenges and the realignment of Wallasea Island in 2006 is one of the largest. There were a variety of issues encountered during the development of the Wallasea Island realignment that make it a good platform for exploring the issues and some of the solutions that have been found to date. This account describes the project and some of the measures taken to give it as high a level of social acceptability as possible. Such measures include design features for fish nurseries, provision of public access and careful liaison with affected communities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper builds on the 'Flooding from Other Sources' project (HA4a), funded as part of Defra's Making Space for Water strategy. The HA4a study concluded that flood risk mapping is feasible for many of the sources of flooding that were investigated, which are not currently covered by the Environment Agency Flood Map, using existing flow modelling and GIS tools. However, there are some major constraints in terms of the need to undertake extensive data collection to allow the generation of useful flood maps that are not dominated by modelling uncertainties. The project anticipated that different levels of data collection and modelling might be needed for different purposes, given the hierarchical nature of UK flood risk assessment and management in the United Kingdom under PPS25 and the EC Floods Directive. This paper compares and contrasts three different approaches to urban flood modelling using topographic analysis, blanket extreme rainfall and semi-coupled sewer/overland routing. The UK summer floods 2007 have highlighted the pressing need for mapping the risk from urban flash flooding, and the Pitt Review has recommended that areas at high risk from surface waters should be urgently identified. This can be done now at some level of detail, and we can be guided as to what level, from our increasing knowledge of vulnerable populations, from records of historical flooding and by using some of the screening methods described herein. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]