Why flood adaptive technology is game-changer in increasingly unpredictable climate: Simon Gilliland

Our changing climate means that flood events are happening more frequently than ever before, both here in the UK and further afield.

In fact, globally 29 per cent of the world’s population - 2.2 billion people - have a one per cent chance of flooding in any given year.

Historically, efforts to protect homes and businesses from flooding have largely focused on what are known as resistance and resilience measures.

Flood resistance measures prevent, delay or limit the amount of water entering a property, whereas flood resilience involve the use of materials, products and construction techniques to adapt the inside of a property to minimise the damage caused if floodwater enters.

However, at the Flood Technology Group we’ve adopted a completely new and radical approach to addressing the growing flood risk that we face by pioneering the use of what we call ‘avoidance’ measures to construct buildings and infrastructure with a proven ability to evade flood water.

To make this possible we’ve developed ground-breaking flood adaptive technology capable of sensing and responding to rising water levels.

For example, our multiple-purpose Flood Adaptive Platform is a groundbreaking mechanical jack system designed to automatically elevate above the rising water.

This revolutionary technology has been rigorously tested in flood environments, in conjunction with the University of Liverpool and HR Wallingford, confirming that it’s safe and highly effective.

It has already been applied to mobile homes and modular buildings, highlighting its ability to protect properties and their contents from the threat of flooding, but its potential is limitless.

This game-changing technology can be used to protect a vast range of infrastructure across many different sectors, from utilities and energy to commercial and transportation.

What’s more, because flood adaptive technology is capable of keeping people and property safe throughout a flood event, it also offers local authorities and developers huge potential for development in areas of high flood risk, which would previously have been considered off-limits.

This means that it can also play a part in attracting inward investment to areas where greater flood resilience is needed, as well as helping to negate the need for costly, carbon heavy flood mitigation work.

We believe that harnessing the power of this kind of technology is absolutely key to adapting and thriving in our changing climate, both here in the UK and globally.

Flood adaptive technology’s potential really is limitless and we’re very excited to be at the forefront of that.

Simon Gilliland is Chief Executive of the Flood Technology Group