RAB appointed as Partner and Workstream Lead on Project Groundwater

The team at RAB are delighted to have been announced as a Partner and Workstream Lead on Project Groundwater. The project is funded by Defra as part of the £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programmes which is managed by the Environment Agency. The programmes will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate.

Project Groundwater is one of the funded projects, focusing on communities in nine high-risk flood areas of the Chiltern Hills and Berkshire Downs. It is led by Buckinghamshire Council in partnership with five other local authorities and Flood Community Groups.

RAB have been appointed as Lead Partner on the Resilience Workstream of Project Groundwater. Our leadership role commences this month (April 2023) and runs for four years. The objective of this workstream is to research and test innovative methods for increasing resilience to groundwater flooding. This includes community resilience to withstand flood events, methods to prevent groundwater flooding from reaching properties, and protective measures that could be installed to properties to increase resilience during flood events. All the work will lead to the creation of a best practice toolkit for communities at risk of groundwater flooding.

RAB will collaborate with over 30 organisations already working within the wider project and parallel workstreams relating to groundwater monitoring, flood modelling, flood alerts, community engagement and placemaking. We will use our knowledge, experience and connections within the flood risk and Property Flood Resilience (PFR) sectors to identify, research, develop, test, and implement new and existing methods for managing and mitigating the risks posed from groundwater flooding.

The team are excited to be at the forefront of this research. The outcomes and initiatives from the project will be benefit the target communities, but also to be used as a case study of best practice for managing groundwater flood risks on a broader scale in the future. The findings will therefore help other communities across the country and even internationally.

Further information on Project Groundwater can be found on their website: https://projectgroundwater.co.uk/

Further information on the resilience and flood risk services that RAB provide is available on our website: https://rabconsultants.co.uk. You can also get in touch by email (enquiries@rabconsultants.co.uk) or call our head office in Lichfield on 0330 223 6475.