70 years after the North Sea flood: Are we prepared for more coastal flooding?

Our episode today is about future flooding scenarios due to sea level rise. This year, we remember the 1953 North Sea flood on the night of 31 January/1 February 1953 that devastated Scotland, England, Belgium, and especially the Netherlands. In the UK, the east coast was particularly affected – especially Lincolnshire, Essex, Norfolk, and the mouth of the Thames area. The flood was caused by a storm combined with spring tides and severe gale force winds from the north.

In the UK, 1600 km of coastline was badly affected destroying mile upon mile of sea walls and dikes and inundating 160,000 acres of land with seawater, rendering it unusable for a number of years for agricultural purposes. Livestock and domesticated animals were killed in the thousands and washed out to sea. Over 24,000 homes in the UK were seriously damaged. 40,000 people in the UK were left homeless and many people’s livelihoods were ruined. Most shockingly over 300 people died in England – with about 50 deaths in Belgium, about 30 deaths in Scotland and nearly 2,000 deaths in the Netherlands in the area around Rotterdam.

The flood caused a fundamental rethinking of coastal defenses including the commissioning of the Thames Barrier, and the introduction of weather prediction and storm surge warning systems – in modern parlance a “transformation”. Storms still threaten these coasts and the 5-6 December 2013 storm surge was in physical terms a more severe event than 1953. However, it was well forecast and with much better defences, damage was much smaller although significant problems still occurred, such as flooding at the port of Immingham. Importantly, no-one died. However, climate change and especially sea-level rise, is increasing the risk of flooding in the UK. The UK Climate Change Committee warned in 2021 that the most recent climate change risk assessment revealed 1.9 million people in England currently face a risk of greater flooding of any kind. 

Today’s guests are Prof. Robert Nicholls and Prof. Ivan Haigh who will talk more about flood risks in the face of climate change. Professor Robert Nicholls is the Director of the Tyndall Centre and is a world-leading scientist and engineer who has studied coastal problems and solutions for 30 years, focusing on how increases in sea level caused by climate change result in coastal erosion and flooding, and how communities can adapt to these changes. He has studied the implications of sea-level rise in the UK and in many of the most sensitive regions of the world.

(Royalty Free Music by Benjamin Tissot)