“Working collectively, alongside nature: a unifying vision and clear pathway helps create a vibrant partnership of society working together with nature to build resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change.”
NICW vision for flooding in 2050

After the storm

Communities are still cleaning up after Storm Bert, which brought flooding and landslides to towns across Wales. Whilst the news has moved on, the impacts on these places, people’s lives and livelihoods are devastating and will remain for some time whilst they’re also thinking when might the next storm hit.

Flooding presents an increasing challenge to people, communities and infrastructure in Wales, with 1 in 7 homes already at risk, and that figure will increase by more than a third as the impacts of climate change are felt. Our climate is getting warmer and wetter; Wales has seen a 24% increase in rainfall over the last 30 years, and the UK experienced 12 named storms during 2023-24.

The UK Committee on Climate Change has warned repeatedly that the UK and Wales is not prepared for these impacts. And we won’t be able to protect every property or community.

NICW’s work

Over the last 18 months National Infrastructure Commission for Wales (NICW) has looked at how we can develop greater resilience to flooding over the next 30 years and has shown that we need a different approach – one that works with people and with nature.

“Working collectively, alongside nature: a unifying vision and clear pathway helps create a vibrant partnership of society working together with nature to build resilience and adapt to the impacts of climate change.” In our new report, published in October, we set out our Vision for a flood resilient Wales by 2050:

Using the Well-being of Future Generations Act as our guiding framework we set out the need for greater clarity of roles and responsibilities, more innovative and long-term thinking, scaling up collaborative and catchment scale approaches, with a focus on nature-based solutions, to improve outcomes and save public expenditure in the long term.

Our report includes 17 radical but practical recommendations, which include:

• Establishing a Water Commissioner, a role that can streamline leadership and governance, providing national coordination and support for long-term resilience planning,
• Pilot and set up regional/ local catchment partnerships to support a regional approach,
• Establish a new Water Resilience Forum for Wales along with community resilience groups to involve communities in decision-making processes related to flood resilience,
• Set up a taskforce to explore how the uptake of nature-based solutions can be scaled,
• Set up a new cross-sector climate change adaptation and resilience fund, along with exploring and diversifying funding sources to include more innovative models, and
• Provide subsidies for low-income homeowners to build flood resilience at the property level.

Welsh Government recently published their Climate Adaptation Strategy for Wales; within it they recognise that Wales needs to adapt and bring forward innovative solutions to ensure we become more resilient to current and future risks. However, we can’t continue with ‘business and usual’ and we need to see greater leadership and facilitation of a new way of working that we set out within our report.

Listening to communities

As part of our work, we have visited some of the communities who have been affected by flooding in recent years including the Conwy Valley, Crickhowell and Pontypridd. We heard how they want to be involved in the decisions that affect them and want to be part of the solution. We also visited the inspirational Usk Catchment Partnership to see and hear from farmers who are installing natural flood barriers on their land, and shows what’s possible when people come together to focus on solutions.

We urgently need to see more people and organisations coming together, to help everyone understand the changes that are likely to happen, and how we can work collectively to build more resilient communities. This can’t wait until the next storm hits.