Ian Moodie is our flood management and access adviser.
No single river catchment is the same, and as such reducing the risk of flooding needs careful consideration and knowledge of both the local landscape and the best management techniques available.
Experts in water and land management, writing in the Daily Telegraph, have called for future government actions to manage flooding to draw on best practice and professional expertise.
Correctly, the group identifies that more is needed to understand how forestry, land management and flood alleviation schemes can effectively hold back water in the upper reaches of rivers, and at the same time how dredging may assist in the lower reaches.
They also call for any new housing on floodplains to be made resilient when built, and for sustainable drainage systems to be fitted extensively across existing buildings and on all new buildings to reduce their impact during times of flood.
These suggestions are to be welcomed, with more variable weather patterns comes a greater need for more resilient land, urban and river management. There is a range of water management techniques which could have helped reduce the effect of flooding on both towns/villages, and over surrounding farmland seen recently. In the long term, the management of water requires a clear strategy from government.
Perhaps most critically of all, for such flood management to be effective what is needed is co-operation, not only between the professions and authorities, but crucially with farmers and residents who hold the essential local knowledge.