La petite ville de Tenbury Wells “will it become the first British town abandoned due to climate change?” worried The Guardian at the beginning of December. It must be said that the approximately 4,000 inhabitants of the town have particularly suffered in recent years, with seven periods of flooding in four years. “Located on flat land and surrounded by water, Tenbury Wells sees its streets submerged in just a few minutes, describes the left-wing London daily. When the latest flood hit, merchants, who were no longer able to pay their insurance because of the accumulation of penalties, were just recovering from the previous floods.”
But Tenbury Wells is far from being an isolated case across the Channel. According to the Met Office and the Environment Agency, some 6.3 million homes are exposed to flooding across England, the United Kingdom’s most populous nation. “By 2050, one in four homes, or eight million in total, will be threatened by rivers, the sea or surface water, according to forecasts published Tuesday [17 décembre]”, indicates the Financial Times.
Adaptation measures abandoned
According to modeling from the two organizations, updated for the first time since 2018 to take into account the effects of climate change, “the biggest threat comes from flash floods.” The number of homes exposed to the highest level of risk has thus increased “spectacularly” – around 88% over the last six years, adds the economic daily.
These projections, estimates the Guardian, must serve as an alarm signal for public authorities, in a context of“40% of flood protection projects abandoned in recent years due to lack of investment”. This fall, the United Kingdom was hit in quick succession by two particularly violent storms (Bert and Darragh), which claimed the lives of seven people, recalls the London daily.
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