Property Level Resilience: Belsize Flood Resilience Project and Southampton Pathfinder Project

The Belsize Flood Resilience Project started in 2013 and aimed at reducing the flood risk to the properties at highest risk of this in the St Deny’s area.

The scheme came from the Southampton Coastal Flood and Erosion Risk Management Strategy (2012) which proposed that property level flood resistance and resilience and community adaptation measures were implemented for the highest risk properties between 2030 and 2060.

The aim of the Belsize Flood Resilience Project was to improve household and community flood resilience using a combined approach to managing all sources of flood risk.

The project worked closely with the community at significant flood risk in St Denys to:

• Further understand the flood risk interactions in the local area
• Assess and implement the most appropriate combination of measures to reduce the risk to individual households
• Empower residents to implement their own local community response to future flood events

The main achievements of the project were:

• Reduced flood risk to 46 individual households in the target area (an increase on the original 39 targeted properties)
• Direct engagement with residents throughout the project to increase awareness, acceptance, and ownership of the flooding issue
• Community resilience through establishment of a local flood action group who produced a local community flood plan

For more information on the scheme and the Community Flood Group please visit ItchenTides – Community Tide News.

Southampton Pathfinder Project

The Flood Resilience Community Pathfinder scheme was intended to enable and stimulate communities at significant or greater risk of flooding to work with key partners. This work developed innovative local solutions that: