UK

The Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, in collaboration with the British Hydrological Society have released their report on the winter floods 2015/2016 in the UK. The review brings together both river flow and meteorological data in an analysis of the events that led to extensive river flooding in northern England, Scotland, Northern Ireland and parts of Wales.

Find out more and download the report here

A BBC environmental analyst says, "Hundreds of thousands of householders in flood risk areas have failed to install basic protection against rising waters, insurers say". The Association of British Insurers said even buildings guarded by flood defences should have flood-proof doors in case embankments are over-topped

A major water research initiative between UK and India researchers launches today.

The new virtual India-UK Water Centre, is managed by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology (CEH) and the Indian Institute of Tropical Meteorology (IITM) and aims to stimulate research collaboration to address water availability and sustainable water management issues in both countries.

The UK Government has released a review of flood risk assessment, reductions in the likelihood of flooding, and ways make the country as resilient as possible to flooding. The reports says, "In the light of the severity of recent events, and the risk that these or similar events will occur again, it is appropriate to reconsider our approaches to assessing flood risk, to reducing the likelihood of flooding, and to making our nation as resilient as possible to flooding."

"All UK hydroelectric projects with planning permission are in Scotland, according to research by Scottish Renewables."

The group said a total of 27 projects with a combined capacity of 58.5MW have planning permission, with 14 schemes totalling 26.8MW under construction in the UK – all in Scotland.

The study comes after news earlier this month that two community-scale hydropower plants in the Scottish Highlands have secured nearly £5 million investment from the Green Investment Bank.

The UK Lakes Portal is a new online gateway to discover the lakes of the United Kingdom, linking data from many institutions into one national hub.

With more than 40,000 lakes represented, a third of those with detailed information on their catchments, the scale of this new portal hosted by the Centre for Ecology & Hydrology is unprecedented for freshwater research in the UK.

The National River Flow Archive has released an expanded data download facility which allows users to download data from all the gauging stations held on the national archive. Previously, only data for around 400 gauging stations were accessible for direct download from the NRFA website, with the remaining 1,100 or so requiring users to contact the NRFA by telephone or email to retrieve information and data.