Hello and welcome to Flooding Matters.

We hope you are all keeping safe and well.

Under normal circumstances we would be inviting you to a volunteer network event, as per previous years, but sadly that is not possible due to the coronavirus pandemic.

We would love to keep in touch to ensure you get the information and advice you need. So, we’ve created Flooding Matters to bring together articles of interest, useful information about flooding and updates on things going on in Natural Resources Wales and beyond. We hope this will support you in these different and difficult times. 

You have received this newsletter because you have given permission previously to contact you about events and meetings about flooding.

• If you do not wish to receive newsletters from us you can unsubscribe at any time.
• If you are happy to receive further Flooding Matters newsletters from us, then you don’t have to do anything.

This is our first newsletter and we would appreciate your feedback and suggestions to make sure this is something you find helpful. If there is anything you would like us to cover in future newsletters, or if you have something to contribute, please let us know.

Send any questions or information to: floodawareness.wales@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

Covid-19

News on how Natural Resources Wales are managing our services during the coronavirus pandemic is regularly updated in our response to the coronavirus pandemic. Public Health Wales has lots of helpful advice on looking after your mental and physical wellbeing.  This is updated frequently and includes advice on how to stay connected and how to access support if required. We know that some community groups have rallied together to help each other at this time of crisis. Stay safe and thank you again for all your efforts in helping your community. If this is something your community is doing or looking to do, you may find the resources below useful.   Advice on looking out for each other safely from the Welsh Government Communities Prepared has free online training resources for Public Health. This is an external site so information is only available in English.

The Winter Storms

Photo credit: Clare Jones. Flooded street in Pontypridd during Storm Dennis

Only a few months ago Wales experienced some of the worst flooding in the last 40 years. The very wet winter period and February’s flood events were significant in their impact to families and businesses in several communities across Wales. Our thoughts are with those who have not been able to return to their homes or business premises and who are now feeling the effects even more deeply in light of the coronavirus crisis.

We have been working closely with our partners in local authorities and the emergency services to learn from what happened and identify areas where we can make improvements.   

We are reviewing what went well and what can be improved as part of our commitment to learn and, where possible, improve our services. Despite the Covid-19 restrictions, work goes on and we remain committed to supporting all parts of Wales to become more resilient to the risks posed by future flooding and the kind of extreme weather we saw last winter.

Jeremy Parr, our Head of Flood and Incident Risk Management said:

"As we continue to learn throughout this recovery and review process, we are also looking to plan for the future. The scientific consensus is that our climate is changing and extreme weather events like those experienced this winter will become more common.  

"There is still a lot to do and we will all need to change and adapt to make ourselves as resilient as possible to the impacts climate change will continue to have on our communities. We remain determined to work in partnership to build that resilience and enhance our readiness to tackle the climate emergency."

You can find out more from our news article: Three months on from the winter storms.

We would like your help and are also here to help you

Any information that you can provide can help us improve our own understanding of the events and our Flood Warning Service for the future. We would like to be able to try and discuss your queries despite not being able to meet at a network event.

Do you have any questions about the recent flooding? Do you have detailed notes or dated photos with specific locations taken during the incident? Do you know where the water reached, where the river burst its bank or details of whether a defence overtopped?

We will aim to answer your questions in our next newsletter. If your query relates to one of our partners, we will do our best to get those answers for you but please bear with us, as it may not be possible at this time or there may be a delay. Answers will be based on information available to date, as investigations continue.

Send any questions or information to: floodawareness.wales@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

Community flood plan volunteer network

Did you know that across Wales there are 76 community flood plans? You are part of that network, and along with many other people across Wales, have taken steps to prepare yourselves and your communities for flooding. We know that some volunteers have started to connect already and have found this beneficial.  Last year we held two volunteer network events for anyone involved or interested in being in a community flood plan. Thank you to those who attended - we hope you found them useful. Most of the content was interactive but we can send you a copy of the Flood Re or Public Health Wales presentations, if you weren’t able to make it or if you’d like to have a refresher.

Request a copy of the presentations from: floodawareness.wales@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

The following suggestions were given in the feedback from these events:

Higher attendance from other members of your community or relevant organisations involved in your community flood plan

We are thinking of ways that we can improve attendance and engagement at volunteer network events for when it’s possible to organise an event again. We would like to encourage networking as much as possible in the current circumstances too. We would be very happy to facilitate introductions to other groups if you would like to. We would not give out personal details but we can pass on your interest to other groups with your consent. Or if you would be willing to share any tips or suggestions for best practice, we can share those in an upcoming newsletter.

More information on roles and responsibilities during flooding

We know there are several different organisations with different responsibilities and roles within flooding. We have listened to your feedback and are working on ways to improve our online information regarding responsibilities in the long term. To help in the meantime, we do have a 'Flooding - who can help?' downloadable resource on our website and the National Flood Forum has information on their website about Who does what in a flood.

Tailor information to our community’s concerns

We would really like to make information as helpful as possible and find out what matters to you. We organised the Flood Re presentation at the most recent events, following feedback from the previous events. We value and rely on your feedback to try and meet your needs. To do this in these different times, we would like to have a regular suggestion feature on our newsletter. What would you like to see included in future newsletters? How often would you like to receive a newsletter? Is there something you’d like to know more about? Would you like some guidance on one of our online services? Would you be willing to share any of your experiences? Let us know - we want your feedback!

Send any suggestions, ideas or questions to: floodawareness.wales@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

Coming soon

Please keep an eye on your emails, our Facebook page and our newsletter for updates on the below.

New River levels, rainfall and sea data service

A preview of our new River levels, rainfall and sea data webpage

Our new River levels, rainfall, and sea data service will be going live on our website in the near future. Here is a first look at what the service will look like.

Our current service displays river level data from 250 monitoring stations across Wales. Our new service will have all the same data and functionality, with these additions: a new interactive graph 148 rainfall stations and 9 tidal stations the ability to download 15-minute data. Once the new service is live, we would welcome any feedback from you to guide future improvements.

A survey to find out how we can improve our community flood plan template

In the next couple of weeks, we will be getting in touch to ask for your help to complete a survey about your community flood plan. We value your expertise and your experience with this, so would like to ask, what would have helped you when you first started? We hope that by gaining your feedback we will be able to: make improvements to the community flood plan template to help other communities starting to develop their own plan find out whether there are any resources that could help your community group More details about the survey and how to complete it will be sent to you soon.

We hope that you have enjoyed reading our first newsletter. Depending on your feedback and suggestions, we are aiming to send out the next newsletter in late summer.  

If you have any queries in the meantime, please get in touch. floodawareness.wales@cyfoethnaturiolcymru.gov.uk

Natural Resources Wales

Website | Contact us

Subscription Management

Manage my preferences | Unsubscribe  | Privacy Policy | Help