CRS12 Number of Community Services at significant risk of flooding

SEPA’s National Flood Risk Assessment has identified 289 Potentially Vulnerable Areas (PVAs) across 14 Local Plan Districts (Figure 1).  These are based on river catchments and therefore cross both administrative and institutional boundaries (SEPA, 2011).  SEPA is responsible for producing a Flood Risk Management Strategy for each Local Plan District by the end of 2015. 

Using this guidance, the lead Local Authorities for each District will then develop Local Flood Risk Management Plans, which take the strategies and turn them into Local Delivery Plans, with implementation dates and corresponding funding requirements.  They will also provide a mechanism to co-ordinate actions at a local level for the next six years (the flood risk management planning cycle time); interim and final reports are to be produced in 2019 and 2022 respectively (SEPA, 2012). 

Figure 1 Local Plan Districts identified in the National Flood Risk Assessment (SEPA, 2011)
A significant element of local resilience depends on the services that support communities: GP and dental surgeries, hospitals, schools, emergency services, post offices, etc. (Table 1).  The extent to which these (individual) services are at risk needs to be understood to determine the integrity of community resilience as a factor in determining overall flood risk.

Related Indicators:

CRS20: Number of flood incidents attended by SFRS each year

BW4:  Wastewater treatment works in areas at flood risk

BW5:  Water treatment works in areas at flood risk

Community Services are an important foundation for community resilience.  In order of importance, these services include the following, as shown in Table 1:

Table 1 Community Services Value Categories

source: SEPA, 2011

The National Flood Risk Assessment methodology used this Value in developing a grid based risk score in order to identify a catalogue of Potentially Vulnerable Areas (PVAs) that warrant further, more detailed investigation (SEPA, 2011).

PVAs have been further assessed using the Appraisal Baseline Methodology, which includes a list of receptors (the entity – person, property, habitat - that may be harmed) and corresponding flood risk indicators that it will use in establishing the appraisal baseline[1] (SEPA, 2013).  For Community Facilities (note a change of name between the Assessment and the Appraisal) these are presented simply as a count (Table 2), which it further recommends should be assessed on a site-by-site basis at a later stage.  This recommendation should inform the development of Local Delivery Plans.

Overall risk in proportionate terms is very low, less than 6% of all Services nationally in a 1:200 year return period.[2]

Table 2 Community Services at risk (count) – all sources of flooding

source: derived from appraisal baseline data (SEPA, 2013)

The 14 Local Plan Districts (LPDs) are based on river catchments and therefore cross administrative and institutional boundaries.  They are illustrated above in Figure 1.  Distributional effects are apparent in that the principal areas of risk exist in Highland & Argyll (LPD1), Tweed (LPD13) and particularly Clyde & Loch Lomond (LPD11), which includes the City of Glasgow.

If the underlying sources – pluvial (ground water), coastal, fluvial - are considered (Figure 2), Community Services in Clyde and Loch Lomond (LPD11) are at most risk from pluvial flooding.  Community Services in Tweed (LPD13) and Highland & Argyll (LPD1) are most vulnerable to fluvial events, as might be expected. 

It is also worth noting that Community Services in the Forth Estuary (LPD10), which includes the City of Edinburgh, are exposed to 1 in 200 year return events. So too, but to a significantly lesser extent, are Services in the North East (LPD6), which includes the City of Aberdeen. 

Vulnerability to coastal flooding is confined primarily to Highland & Argyll (LPD1) and even here is low, perhaps reflecting the fact that Services are generally located away from the coast.

source: derived from appraisal baseline data (SEPA, 2013)

Figure 2: Community Services at Risk of Flooding by Source

[Note change of scale on y-axes]

1. No breakdown data was available of the risk associated with the different types of Community Services, each of which has a different value (importance), evaluated against the potential disruption to a community, and according to criteria defined in the National Flood Risk Assessment (SEPA, 2011). 
2. Unlike residential and non-residential (commercial) properties, no estimate of indirect economic impact is available for Community Services.  This is at odds with the general statement that the appraisal assessment will consider direct and indirect damage (to receptors) and with the specific objective of reducing indirect economic damages to emergency services (SEPA, 2013). 
3. In determining grid risk scores the NFRA took account of 40 of the 113 formal flood prevention schemes listed in the Scottish Flood Defence Asset Database (SFDAD), applying them to residential and non-residential (commercial) properties in ‘benefitting areas’.  The appraisal baseline methodology also takes account of flood defences.   However, the mitigating effect of these schemes on the risk to Community Services cannot be quantified. 
4. Furthermore, there is no data on the defensive measures deployed to protect Community Services although there might be an expectation that higher ‘value’ assets would be defended first.