Flood Hydrology Roadmap: UK Vision for the Next 25 Years

The Environment Agency has unveiled an ambitious roadmap addressing flood hydrology development over the coming quarter-century. This initiative carries substantial importance, as hydrological assessments form the foundation for flood modelling accuracy and directly shape flood risk projections and management strategies.

The EA’s Commitment

The Environment Agency is allocating up to £165 million across 25 years to enhance hydrological methodologies through 31 coordinated actions organised into four thematic areas:

• Ways of working
• Data management
• Methodological improvements
• Scientific understanding advancement

The agency emphasises that “flood hydrology underpins billions of pounds’ worth of investment” across UK flood risk management, from defence infrastructure to insurance underwriting and reservoir safety protocols.

Critical Assessment

While we welcome improved investment in this domain, the allocation appears modest compared to overall flood risk sector spending (£2.6 billion over six years alone). Hydrological estimation — arguably the most subjective flood modelling component — deserves substantially greater resources.

There are specific concerns around outdated foundational data underlying FEH methodologies, limited exploration of rainfall-runoff modelling alternatives, and restricted access to critical datasets behind paywalls. We advocate for genuinely open-access data systems enabling validation through real-world information.

Path Forward

The roadmap envisions “new and historical data are communicated and shared openly” while remaining “freely available for all carrying out flood hydrology studies.” However, significant implementation barriers persist, including proprietary software requirements and tiered pricing structures disadvantaging smaller enterprises.

Meaningful progress requires breaking down access barriers to tools, data, and methodologies across the industry.