This document summarizes the impacts of winter storms on the Welsh coast. It discusses two reports published in 2014 that reviewed coastal flooding events in January 2014. The first phase report examined immediate storm impacts across Wales. The second phase report identified 47 recommendations in 6 priority areas to improve flood risk management. These included investing in coastal defenses, improving flood information systems, clarifying roles, and better supporting community resilience. The document outlines recent progress made and future challenges in addressing the recommendations.

1. Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast
Severn Estuary Forum 2014 Tuesday 16th September Louise Pennington Senior Coastal Advisor, Flood Risk Strategy Natural Resources Wales

2. Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast
Recent Coastal Storms in Wales

3. Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast
Distribution of Flood Warnings

4. Phase 1 report published on 14th February 2014 at: http://cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk/flooding-and-water/flood-alerts-and- warnings/flood-reports/wales-coastal-flooding-report/?lang=en
Quoting from the Minister’s written statement of 9th January 2014:
‘Phase one will be a swift review of the impacts across the whole of the country from both coastal flooding events and will look at the state of the coastal defences following the storm event. This will be produced by the end of January 2014.
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast
Phase 1

5. Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast
Coastal Impact Locations

6. Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast
Properties flooded by location
Tidal flooding at Tintern, 2nd January 2014

7. Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast
Estimated restoration costs by organisation

8. Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast
Locations of damages avoided to properties and agriculture

9. Returning to the Minister’s written statement of 9th January 2014: ‘Phase two will look into the wider lessons learnt from both of these coastal flooding incidents and flood risk management in affected areas and include:
•Details of the flood event, its modelling and forecasting
• Operational response from flood risk management authorities
• How defences performed, properties affected and estimates of those protected
• Impacts on infrastructure and resilience to future flood events
• Lessons learnt, so that we can be better prepared for future events.’
Scope of Phase 2
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast

10. Phase 2 report published on 30th April 2014 at: http://cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk/flooding-and-water/flood-alerts-and- warnings/flood-reports/wales-coastal-flooding-review-phase-2-report/?lang=en
47 Recommendations drawn into
6 priority areas
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast

11. There needs to be sustained investment in coastal flood and erosion risk management.
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast

12. There needs to be improved information on coastal flood defence and erosion management systems.
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast

13. There needs to be greater clarity on
roles and responsibilities.
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast

14. There needs to be an assessment of the skills and
capacity of risk management authorities.
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast

15. There needs to be more support to communities to help them become more self-sufficient and resilient.
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast

16. There needs to be locally developed and delivered plans for coastal communities and infrastructure operators.
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast

17. In May 2014 the Minister instructed NRW to ‘commence work on developing a delivery plan, co-ordinating closely with Risk Management Authorities and Welsh Government Officials’. Since then we have:
•Collated our initial thoughts on a Delivery Plan and met with Welsh Government and the Welsh Local Government Association.
•Acted on opportunities available to progress specific Recommendations.
•Issued a briefing note to all Phase 1 & Phase 2 contributing parties.
•Held an Initial Workshop with Risk Management Authorities. In July 2014 the Minister responded to the Recommendations by issuing a written statement accepting 42 outright and the remaining 5 in principle.
Recent progress
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast

18. Future challenges…
Rec. 10.
Assess our national capacity to respond to a widespread and sustained period of coastal flooding. This should include consideration of when the current national resource pool will no longer function effectively. This should also consider post incident recovery issues.
Provide a report with recommendations for improvement.
Rec. 22.
Assess the collective ability to provide an effective response to a potential large scale evacuation scenario in either north east or south east Wales. This should also consider post incident recovery issues. Provide a report with recommendations for improvement.
The Wales Flood Group are planning a coastal evacuation exercise in Llantrisant on 10th March 2015 aiming ‘to identify gaps and learning before and during a catastrophic tidal event affecting the South Wales coastline’.
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast

19. Thank you for listening
Louise.Pennington@naturalresourceswales.gov.uk
Winter Storms – Impacts on the Welsh Coast