Minutes:
(1) Christine Wissink (KCC Adaptation Programme Manager) gave a presentation. The accompanying slides are contained within the electronic papers on the KCC website.
(2) Ms Wissink began her presentation by explaining that her role involved working on climate change, including flooding. This work encompassed preparation for the future as well as the present. The presentation would cover the work that was being undertaken in partnership with national and international organisations to make adaptations for climate change.
(3) Ms Wissink began with the Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017 (CCRA 2017). This had arisen out of the Climate Change Act 2008 which imposed upon the Government the duty to assess climate change impacts every five years and to put forward an adaptation programme in response. The most recent risk assessment has been produced in 2017 with the adaptation plan following in 2018. Kent produced a “drilled down” version setting out the implications for the county.
(4) JBA had been appointed in September 2018 to develop the Kent Climate Risk and Impact Assessment (CCRiA). They had undertaken desktop research and discussions with stakeholders (including a workshop), resulting in a draft presented to KCC in May 2019. This very detailed and thorough document was then edited to put it into a format that was sufficiently easy for lay people to read and comprehend.
(5) Ms Wissink then said that the CCRiA was based on the CCRA 2017. It was divided into three parts, the first of these setting out the context, methodology and giving a summary. The second part consisted of in the third part. Most of the material worked on had been taken from UKCP09 and UKCP18.
(6) Ms Wissink turned to the main findings within the CCRiA. There were six priority risks, four of which were already happening and two which would arise in the future. An additional risk (new and emerging pests and diseases an invasive non-native species) had been identified, although its potential impacts were not yet fully understood. Four of the priority risks were significant in terms of the work of the Kent Flood Risk Management Committee. These were identified as :-
(a) Flooding and coastal change risks to communities, businesses and infrastructure;
(b) Risk of storm events/intense rainfall impacting productivity and transport infrastructure. This was particularly significant for the Fruit industry;
(c) Overheating, flooding, drought and coastal change risks for Kent’s natural capital; and
(d) Soil erosion and slope destabilisation as a result of flooding and drought impacting infrastructure, the natural environment ad productivity. This was an additional risk for Kent beyond the national risks set out in CCRA 2017 and was particularly significant for the Rail industry.
(7) Ms Wissink said that the next steps for the CCRiA would be completion of the editing and refining work by the end of July followed by stakeholder consultation in August 2019 and publication in the Autumn. Once this had been done, there would be follow-on work such as the downscaling of the UKCP18 climate projections to extract the Kent data and make it useable for non-experts; the development of the Kent Adaptation Programme and Plan; and the development of local support, either at District Council level or by local sector.
(8) Ms Wissink moved on to discuss the Social Care Assessments that had been carried out. One of these had been on Flood Disadvantage. This looked at people who were more vulnerable to flooding due to their age, health or income levels. Data facts provided by the Rowntree Foundation had been used to identify where disadvantage levels were at their highest. The highest disadvantage levels for fluvial and coastal flooding were in coastal regions, particularly in Swale, Hythe to New Romney and Thanet. There was a higher element of risk across the whole of Kent from surface water flooding. The mapping enabled identification of the areas in Kent which needed to be targeted. In Sheerness, for example, there were two communities next to each other. These had the same level of flood exposure risk. One of these was an elderly population that was cash poor with high levels of disability. The other was a younger population with single parent families and high levels of unemployment. This information would shortly be published for use by Social Care Teams and Emergency Planning, amongst others.
(9) Mapping of Social Care assets, gathered through the SHAPE Atlas system, had also been overlain onto flood risk maps in order to help identify which of these were at greatest risk. This had also helped to identify those properties which were not at risk in themselves, but where their access and egress would be affected. This would soon be published, and the SHAPE Atlas system was publicly available on-line.
(10) Ms Wissink’s next topic was the Severe Weather Impact Monitoring System (SWIMS). This provided public sector organisations with the opportunity to document how they were being affected by severe weather in order to build a data base which could be used for response and recoupment purposes. This system had been running since 2012 but was now in need of updating. This was because an assessment had been undertaken in 2018 as to how the system was being used. It had found that some £18m of accredited data had been inputted into the system but was not of the quality that had been expected.
(11) Ms Wissink said that one of the improvements that would be made was that flooding would be specifically identified as an event, rather than coming under its current event heading of “storms and gales.”
(12) Ms Wissink continued that it had become clear that the SWIMS system was not being used for droughts as the 7-year period had identified only 1 event at no data input cost. Similarly, heatwaves had only been identified on four occasions at a cost of £3,300. The number of organisations inputting had remained consistent and currently stood at 38. However. Only a third of them were inputting good quality data. Another third of them were entering data of variable quality and the final third were hardly using the system at all.
(13) Ms Wissink then said that the analysis had established that there were a lot of changers of users; that the software was out of date and not user-friendly; and it was limited in terms of what it permitted to be entered. European money had been found to develop a new system which was due to go live by the end of 2019 and to be potentially rolled out nationally as well.
(14) Ms Wissink turned to the Adaptation Catalyst. This was work undertaken with Deltares to develop software which could enable identification of the best time to carry out adaptations in terms of risk management and cost/benefit ratios. The user could input the climate change risk and the measure proposed to counteract it (including the time it would take to install and the length of time it was expected to last). The software would then identify whether it was a viable option and would also allow the user to identify alternatives. The software was expected to be ready for use within the next few months having been tested for flooding, subsidence and heat.
(15) In response to a question from Mr Rogers, Mr Harwood confirmed that the Shape Atlas was being used as a tool by the Emergency Planners to not only identify flood risk but also its timing and potential risks to responders.
(16) Mr Rayner expressed surprise that the Kent and Medway Surface Water Flood Disadvantage Map (Figure 9.4 in the report) identified Wrotham as a high-risk area even though its location was on high ground and the Local Authorities seemed to be unaware of this designation. Mr Tant explained that the data was very aggregated and detailed. Flood risk was only one of the factors taken into account. There was also a variety of deprivation scores and other social statistics. It was likely that that there was a medium risk of surface water flooding but high risks in terms of deprivation and resilience.
(17) Mr Brazier said that it was essential that the data was up-to-date and valid. He believed that this was not the case in respect of surface water. He asked whether the resulting conclusions were valid. Ms Wissink replied that much of the data was indeed out-of-date. For example, the disadvantage data had been compiled in 2011. The conclusions were still useful when seen as a general indicator of trends. Mr Tant added that the surface water data was taken from the National Surface Water Flood Map. He would treat the results with caution if he was seeking to identify individual properties but would be reasonably confident when identifying areas within the county.
(18) Mrs Brown suggested that a series of seminars could be held with Parish Councils at a later stage so that they could understand the full implications of the data and maps that were being reported. The Chairman agreed with Mrs Brown that such an exercise would have value. This was an idea that would be explored.
(19) Ms Wissink asked for an indication of what aspects of her work Parish Councils would find most interesting. Mr Rayner said that he believed that Parish Councils would be interested to know why they appeared on a map so that they could incorporate measures into their own Local Plan arrangements for dealing with an emergency. In straight forward terms, they would be able to translate the information provided into a programme that enabled their communities to help themselves.
(20) RESOLVED that Christine Wissink be thanked for her presentation and that consideration be given to arranging presentations for Parish Councils and other local interested groups.