To provide updated projections of flood risks for the UK

The second CCRA (CCRA2) was published in 2017 and was supported by a comprehensive Evidence Report from the Adaptation Sub-Committee (ASC). Defra and the devolved administrations are in the process of drafting updated national adaptation programmes in response to the risks and opportunities set out in the report.

The third CCRA will be published by the government in January 2022, and Defra have asked the ASC to produce an accompanying Evidence Report by summer 2021.To inform this Evidence Report the ASC are commissioning six research projects, funded by Defra, the devolved administrations and the research councils. The ASC has been engaging with relevant stakeholders (e.g. researchers, funders, academies) with a view of addressing key evidence gaps from the CCRA2 report on a variety of timescales. The scientific literature is also being reviewed to identify work that may already exist in these areas. For CCRA2, the ASC commissioned a research project developing projections of future flood risk across the UK based on a small set of climate and population scenarios i.e. 2°C, 4°C and H++ scenarios for climate and low, medium and high growth scenarios for population. That project identified some significant increases in future flood risk over the 21st Century and also analysed the potential for a suite of adaptation options to mitigate those risks. With CCRA3 there is a desire to update the projections to take into account the most recent flood risk policies in England, Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland; to make use of new climate information in the latest UK climate projections (UKCP18); and to extend the previous analysis in the following two novel ways: • The analysis should have a greater spatial element - flood risk should be assessed at higher spatial resolution and the results presented for different types of locations e.g. cities, coastal communities or rural locations; and • The project should assess and present the effectiveness of place-specific adaptation strategies in these different areas, and present under what scenarios of climate, socioeconomic change and adaptation, limits to adaptation might occur. This new work will have significant value for CCRA3 as it will not only assess risks but also how effective adaptation responses to those risks may be in different types of places around the UK.

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