Flood Defence Flood defence is an essential human activity. Man has been defending its people, buildings, animals, and land from flood since civilisation began. Some say we should stop and allow nature to take its course. This is unrealistic - do they expect our Dutch neighbours to allow almost the entire land mass of Holland to flood? One hopes not. Realistically we have to think better how flood defence is accomplished but any suggestion (it has been made!) that we stop doing it altogether is at best unintelligent, at worst callous. So how do we effect flood defence? This is something that exercises the minds of many dedicated engineers. First, let us acknowledge that we will continue to build and repair flood walls or levees, river defences, coastal defence walls and so on ­ much of civilisation, from the Nile to the Mississippi via the Thames and the Amazon depends on it. But a new generation of engineers sees that the problem has changed with the climate and is also concerned with the environmental impact, as well as the lower likelihood of success of larger and larger flood defences. The problem has changed. No longer do we know roughly when flooding will occur - it is less predictable. No longer does flooding come from the rivers and seas alone - across the world flood is equally, perhaps more, likely to come from the increasing extreme weather we have all observed. In urban areas it is equally likely to come from already overloaded drains being unable to take away the water that comes from extreme weather. And these problems are not easily solved. So what is the answer? What is the best defence? Well, there isn't one answer, but here is one idea for developed societies. The main cost of flooding, and agriculturalists should forgive us for saying so, is to people, property and building contents. So why not defend the buildings themselves? Isn't it logical that, if we stop water getting into buildings, we go a long way towards solving many flood defence problems? No one pretends that flood defence for buildings solves everything, but it goes some way ­ and defending buildings works as well in extreme weather flooding or drainage flooding as it does in river or sea flooding. It does not matter where the water comes from ­ if we stop water getting in then the buildings and their contents will not suffer the damage they otherwise would. Flodef is one of the world's leading authorities on buildings flood defence with a number of systems for different types of building. Flodef has yet more complete building flood defence systems in development. Our surveyors will recommend bespoke solutions for the defence of any building. Please call us for more information