Flooding and Disaster Planning

Protecting and enhancing Worcestershire’s special historic environment from natural disaster

In 2014/15 Historic England funded Worcestershire Archive and Archaeology Service to undertake a project aimed at judging the impact of flooding and flood-prevention on the County’s special historic environment and landscape character. The project was undertaken with Dr Andy Howard of Landscape Research & Management and a number of community partners.

Worcestershire is mostly vulnerable to surface and watercourse flooding, with large areas of the countryside, including many historic towns and villages, being regularly subject to flooding. The harmful impact of flooding on historic environment features and character can be significant. Furthermore, flood prevention work can have an impact on historic environment character and individual heritage sites, and may push flood waters elsewhere downstream, spreading damage to heritage sites. Surface water flooding from secondary water courses and factors such as overland flow is also a common threat.

Climate change models, alongside the collective impacts of changes in land use, expects an increase in both the rate and strength of flood events in the future. A broad approach is required to tackle this issue.