Project outcomes and beyond
Specific outcomes
The following reports and other products have been completed through the work of FRAMES:
- Improved Kent SHAPE Atlas and risk maps
- Community analysis: Community flood vulnerability and disadvantages in Kent and Medway
- Severe weather impacts monitoring system (or SWIMS System)
- SWIMS report 2019
- Climate Change Risk and Impact Assessment for Kent and Medway (methodology and summary of findings)
- Section on agriculture
- Section on industry
- Section on people and the built environment
- Section on natural environment
- Section on transport
- Section on utilities
- Health and social care literature review
- Spatial risk assessment report for Kent and Medway, as well as the spatial analysis methodology
- Business Fact Sheets on resilience to severe weather:
Process results
Expected outputs
- Use the data to engage with stakeholders and increase their awareness of and preparedness for flood events.
- Stakeholders to review and update their emergency plans based on flood risk present for each site (interview with pilot managers, 2019).
Flood risk management strategies (FRMS)
The table belows shows the activities that have been undertaken during the FRAMES project in the Kent pilot for every layer of the MLS approach.
| Layers of MLS | Before FRAMES | During FRAMES | After FRAMES |
| Protection/
defense |
Dikes, levees, sluices | There is a greater emphasis on hard infrastructure and less on nature-based solutions (Baseline monitor Kent, 2017)
NFM are implemented in the KCC through another FRAMES pilot (interview with pilot managers, 2019) |
Hard infrastructure is not considered in FRAMES. There is interest in implementing more nature-based solutions (Baseline monitor Kent, 2017).
NFM are also implemented in Kent through another FRAMES pilot (interview with pilot managers, 2019) in |
| Pro-action/ prevention via spatial planning | Low attention | The processes/methods of spatial planning are well known, but not as frequently applied. (Baseline monitor Kent, 2017)
Use of spatial planning tools to reassess the flood risks of care homes and schools in KCC (interview with pilot managers, 2019) |
Increase resilience of critical health/social care infrastructure and build capacities among local organizations/institutions and local communities (Baseline monitor Kent, 2017 |
| Preparation & response | Managed by KRF/KCC emergency planners. | Community and spatial analysis of flood risk (care homes and schools) in Kent (interview with pilot managers, 2019) | Increase the flood risk awareness of local vulnerable communities (care homes and schools) with emergency plans and on how to respond to flood events (interview with pilot managers, 2019) |
| Recovery | Moderate attention | Increase the flood risk awareness of health and social care homes with advice and making sure they have emergency plans in place (interview with pilot managers, 2019) | Awareness raising and stakeholder engagement is key to improve resilient recovery. Provide guidance to care homes to develop/update their emergency plans, what kind of measures to implement and how to fund them (interview with pilot managers, 2019). |
Lessons learnt so far
Improve flood resilience, taking measures for the critical Health & Social Care infrastructure and building capacity among local organizations/institutions and local communities (health emergency resilience plans and measures, Health & Social Care flood resilience model) (FRAMES Pilotbook, 2019). The main objective of the Kent pilot is to increase the flood risk awareness of health/social care community and make them more flood resilient in the long term (interview with pilot managers, 2019).
- Lessons learnt about applying MLS technique:
- Layer 2: update the flood risk of health/social care infrastructure by completing spatial and community analysis of flood risk in Kent (interview with pilot managers, 2019)
- Layer 3: increase the flood risk awareness and preparedness of vulnerable communities from the health/social care sector (interview with pilot managers, 2019)
- Layer 4: Guide and advise vulnerable communities on implementation of measures and how to secure funding (interview with pilot managers, 2019)
- Lessons learnt about tools applied to learn about vulnerabilities: Climate Just was used to study the vulnerable communities across Kent and Medway (interview with pilot managers, 2019)
- Lessons learnt about methods to learn about impact on systems: The SHAPE Atlas was used to study the flood risks to critical health and social care infrastructure (interview with pilot managers, 2019)
- Lessons learnt about methods / techniques for community involvement: Community engagement is commencing after finishing the risk assessment of health/social care infrastructure and assessing the vulnerability of communities. The community engagement will be done in group meetings and discussions with the care homes organisations after meeting with relevant directors at KCC (interview with pilot managers, 2019).
Main uncertainties / challenges encountered
- The overall problem in the UK is that different types of flooding are managed by different organizations. KCC is the lead local flood authority with responsibility for managing the response to surface flooding. KCC and partners in the KRF, led by Kent Police take responsibility for immediate response and recovery when an event happens, KCC has a focus on recovery post event.
- The original plan was to install property level resilience measures in care homes (such as flood gates) and assess if they work or not. However, this was not possible because the care homes are privately owned, they don’t belong to KCC so would have created issues and secondly, the budget did not allow for implementation of measures. However, this has been overcome by advising the care homes what kind of measures they can implement and guiding them on how to finance the retrofitting of measures.
- Another challenge encountered was a delay in the activities because data on the location of health and social care assets in Kent on the SHAPE tool was not accurate. Thus, KCC spent time correcting the data before completing the risk assessment. The location of each health and social care asset had to be corrected before accurate analysis of the flood risk to each site was possible. As a result, it took much longer to complete analysis of the data and therefore to start stakeholder engagement and awareness raising (interview with pilot managers, 2019).
Barriers encountered through the implementation process:
- Not being able to make decisions related to implementation of measures in the health and social care homes because they are not owned by KCC.
- Movement will depend on getting the approaval from the directors from KCC on the risk assessment results before presenting and disccusing them with the care services (interview with pilot managers, 2019).
Dissemination and upscaling of pilot results
For the next steps and upscaling of the pilot results, it is very important to have the directors at Kent County Council (KCC) on board with the risk assessment before engaging with the health and social care services. Within KCC, the data developed as a result of the risk assessment of individual properties and community vulnerability will be combined with other projects on climate change impacts (such as heat stress) to start the conversation with the care homes about increasing resilience to climate change.
Thus, it is expected that
the knowledg
e developed during FRAMES will be incorporated into future projects of KCC about resilience to climate change. It is a starting point to engage with care homes and increase their awareness. Moreover, it is expected that authorities (care homes, service centers) will take internal decisions/actions based on the information received from KCC.
Drivers or barriers for upscaling pilot results could include the intensity and frequency of extreme events (heat waves, flooding), budget cuts due to Brexit, competing KCC priorities and the perception of the different organizations about flood risk (interview with pilot manager, 2019)
Transnational exchange
Pro-action/prevention: The Kent pilot could deliver input for the decision making of urgency and costs of measures for prevention/pro-action of critical infrastructure in Reimerswaal, Sloegebied, and Wesermarch pilots, especially on how to overcome the implementation gap of adaptive measures in the long term.
Protection: Not the focus of this pilot.
Preparedness: Share knowledge on emergency response (evacuation route and emergency planning) with Wesermarsch (Germany), Alblasserwaard and Zeeland (the Netherlands) pilots and on risk communication /capacity building (among authorities, businesses and citizens) with Wesermarsch, Alblasserwaard, Zeeland and Ninove (Belgium) pilots.
Recovery: Get input on flood recovery from the Roskilde pilot (Denmark) on stakeholder flood recovery process.