A Vision for a Flood Resilient Wales in 2050
Working collectively, alongside Nature.
Water Environments: Working collectively alongside nature
Predictive Data: Understanding natural systems
Adaptive Grounds: Shaping future landscapes
Rising Resilience: Strategic governance
Resilient Roots:Blue skills and education
Collective Strength:Resilient communities
Introduction
Thirty years ago, the Welsh Government set out to create a flood resilient nation for thriving generations to come. Few would have imagined how the country would draw on its dynamism, community strength and vision to become a model for other countries and regions struggling to systemically adapt to the changing climate. As infrastructure and fragmented community and government responses struggled to cope with increasingly likely flood events, the country developed a hopeful future vision to steer by. This vision was underpinned by a shift from ‘working in silos, often not in tune with nature’ to ‘working collectively alongside nature’. Long-term perspective and policies helped reframe how Wales can thrive by sustainably using its natural resources and encouraging organisations and businesses to flourish for the benefit of future generations.
A resilient and abundant future Wales is shaped by community empowerment and government support, complemented by innovative climate resilience solutions. Diverse partnerships foster inclusive resilience, while nature’s needs are recognised, ensuring all voices contribute to water environment management and climate response strategies. Collaborative planning and open dialogue ensure proactive climate adaptation, whilst promoting the sustainable use of natural resources and community wellbeing for generations ahead. Wales becomes a centre for flood resilience and develops expertise in the water environment, advocating for the integration of natural asset considerations into daily life and decision-making. Education, grounded in research, enhances understanding of flood resilience and equips citizens with skills around resilience and natural systems. With a unifying and collective vision for the future, Wales thrives.
Water environments
Wales is a hub for flood resilience and adaptation, working alongside nature to enable resilience.
As a nimble legislator and following the lead of New Zealand who enshrined all major natural assets in law and created legislation allowing rivers, biomes and animal kingdoms to advocate for their rights, Wales created a similar model called the Nature Commons. The Nature Commons as a piece of legislation spans a few initiatives from collecting nature data, accessing green infrastructure funding, to better communication between communities and nature. For example, by using emerging technology as an interface to interpret and represent otherwise complex data about river’s biodiversity and health, we can better understand nature’s needs and respond to them by changing the way we manage land. The Well-being of Future Generations Act ensures Wales considers nature as a stakeholder, using Nature Commons as a forward-looking approach of working alongside nature and Water Environments, creating knowledge base and resources for the future communities to inherit and build on.
“For centuries, I’ve been a silent witness, but now I’m more than a spectator; I’m part of the conversation and people use my data to understand what I need and how I’m doing. For the first time, people understand the full scope of my existence – every tributary and stream that feeds into me is part of a bigger picture. This understanding is crucial for those who work the land around me. The insights from my processes and my data help to foster life along my banks and consider the impact of their activities. It’s a partnership now; I provide them with resources, and they help maintain my ecosystems. It’s a balance that we’re still perfecting, but it’s getting better all the time.”
— River Taff, tens of thousands of years old
Predictive data
Emerging technology supports open and transparent access to data which those in Wales understand and helps to steward landscapes.
Through the joint effort of private and public organisations, academia and NGOs, the Water Research Institute developed and implemented some of the UK’s first Nature-based Solutions at scale and green infrastructure funding models. Through trials with local communities that harnessed their knowledge of the land and climate, ecological-centred data analytics models (Eco DAMs) were developed to help steward the land at scale.
These models were introduced to support already existing local communities working to drive innovation and create more resilient ways of managing land and gathered and linked data across catchments to create a national picture. They rapidly capture, model, and represent hundreds of years of data and modelling over entire region, making it easier for humans to adapt, respond to and steward change in the ecosystem. Eco DAMs for the first time allowed communities and the government to access large datasets from the environment, and this data was used to create models for future resilience, helping private companies assess risk and use long-term lens to value nature. Having access to long-term projections data had a tangible impact in funding, private companies participated in collecting capital to build local flood defences and introduce Nature-based Solutions to benefit Wales over the next 100 years and beyond. Flood resilience schemes have even been known to be supported through crowdfunded schemes.
As a result, new business models emerged which focussed on ecosystem services and innovation around coastal resilience structures like autonomous systems building and maintaining 3D printed earth concrete. These bespoke coastal barriers form a landscape of sculptural elements along the Pembrokeshire coast, proving that designing with nature in mind can benefit both the planet and the communities. Cities are equipped with data-driven weather prediction models that provide real-time, hyper-localized forecasts of flood risks. Autonomous machines are deployed to monitor water levels and structural integrity of flood defences. Satellite data is freely shared between regions, fostering a systemic approach to predicting and managing flood risks across Wales.
Adaptive grounds
Our homes, infrastructure and landscapes are adaptable and water resilient.
The turning point for the Welsh government and communities working on flood resilience in 2030s was the understanding that the pace of climate change far outgrew any previous planned investments in flood management. By implementing long-term planning, considering sea level rise and precipitation changes over the next 100+ years, supported by sustainable funding and financing mechanisms, Wales could prepare an adaptive response which supported the management of existing flood mitigation assets, the development of new flood mitigation schemes, and considered how to transition and adapt to a changing climate. The task was enormous, as the uncertainty around climate came both from coastal erosion and rising sea levels, as well as within the land, with rivers flooding rural and urban areas. However, national conversations, Citizens and Youth panels, shaped the plan and gave a sense of influence and hope even though there were hard decisions to be made.
Using knowledge of those stewarding Welsh nature over the past centuries, as well as Eco DAMs, human-to-nature interfaces called river and sea spirits (Gwragedd Annwn) were created to represent rivers, coastlines, and water ecosystems across the country. They are often apps or public billboards and can translate the massive amount of data generated by a river or catchment to a human scale through chat interfaces and visuals. The river and sea spirits warn residents of flooding, report on biodiversity and call for help to support them or invite humans to enjoy river waters when they are clean and calm, have had many supporters. They have even been adopted in the daily weather updates and newscasts. But sceptics saw these as superficial and often fear-mongering broadcasting devices, restricting freedom and the perceived rights of humans to manage their land how they see fit. Despite this, the river and sea spirits pioneered in Wales have now begun to become widely accepted in public and in communities, and other countries are following suit in using the open-source tools made available to build their own nature spirits.
“I adapted my farming practices to increased flooding supported by the River Forums and Nature Commons. I would describe myself as a farmer and a biodiversity steward. I implement nature-based solutions across the land I work with, ensuring that we farm in sync with what the land can sustain whilst also reducing flooding to communities down the river. I am compensated for it too by the government, which is a huge incentive! Knowledge of the land and its care is passed down through generations, with apprenticeships popular amongst the young folks ensuring continuity. Farming is about balance – cultivating food and supporting nature simultaneously.”
Rising resilience
Leadership and integrated responses support a flood resilient Wales
As well as giving voice to nature through Nature Commons and river and sea spirits, coalitions of experts and communities are organised by the Welsh government in River and Coastal Forums. These nation-wide government-hosted catchment platforms and data repositories provide resources about flood resilience and connect multiple disciplines, technical experts, the government, and communities to access shared data and information and distribute funding. Hailed a huge success by once fragmented communities, the forums represent local management of rivers like Taff and Wye and coastlines across Wales. They bring together residents and organisations, allowing them to work together within a shared ecosystem. Following a radical restructure of the governance models by including the Nature Commons as a way of listening to nature, and appointment of a national Water Environments Commissioner, Wales is now considered a leader in resilient community infrastructure. Through national educational campaigns, new forms of funding and valuing nature, and an effort from the government to create River Forums, the country is better prepared to tackle uncertainty around flooding. In an increasingly uncertain future, people from across the world are drawn to the spirit of interconnectedness between nature and humans and inspired by the ingenuity of communities who experiment with ways of living alongside nature in different ways.
“In my role as a government minister, I’ve seen how initiatives like the River Forum, Eco DAMs, and the Water Research Institute foster a systemic shift, transforming our approach to flood resilience and water management. It’s a collaborative effort that extends beyond government action, empowering communities to respond swiftly and effectively. Through river agents, we’re bridging our connection with the natural world, finding common ground in shared responsibility. With the support of dedicated, cross-sector funding, flood defences have become a collective effort. Now, discussions about priorities and strategies extend from the Senedd to the River Forums, making resilience a unifying goal for us all.””
— Beca Davies, 53, Government Minister
“Understanding the river’s behaviour is empowering and I’m part of a community that’s engaged in improving the river’s health. I work closely with local landowners, sharing insights from the river agents, and together, we implement strategies that not only protect our businesses and homes but also restore the river’s ecosystem. This collaboration has brought a sense of agency and purpose. We’re not just reacting to floods; we’re taking proactive steps to prevent them. It’s a long-term commitment, but it’s one that brings hope and a sense of control over our future.”
– David Morgan, 42, Business owner
Resilient roots
Action is empowered through education, training and skills.
‘Working collectively alongside nature’ is one of the national campaign slogans which drew attention to Wales’s role in supporting planetary needs and developing climate resilience. Education and awareness have become foundational. Schools regularly conduct flood preparedness exercises and put climate change in the context of future skills required for generations to be resilient, embedding this knowledge from a young age. National campaigns make the experience of flooding tangible, ensuring that every citizen understands the flood risks and what their role in flood mitigation and stewarding land is, whilst creating an aspirational and hopeful vision of what a thriving Wales could look like for the years to come.
Farmers and land stewards have increasingly embraced diversification, with regenerative farming practices that restore natural ecosystems driving sustainable growth in Wales’s rural economy. Communities have come together to thrive whilst agricultural land has begun to teem with wildlife not seen in such abundance for hundreds of years as the soil underpinning ecosystems has been replenished with vital nutrients. This biodiversity has massively increased the sponginess of the soil further reducing the risk of flooding in a virtuous cycle of land, people and produce. One of the pioneering methods was using autonomous construction systems and reskilled labour paired with open-source, low-cost resilient techniques, allowing local communities to build and retrofit their homes with property flood resilience measures using government support schemes and crowdsourced, Eco DAMs backed, funding. These low-cost builds created from local materials like kelp bricks and bio-concrete had minimal carbon footprint, and their unique funding system meant that entire neighbourhoods could collectively decide to transition away from areas too vulnerable to inhabit due to sea level rise, beginning a new era of climate resilient dwellings.
“The Water Research Institute, which was set up in the late 2020s as a reaction to a bleak climate outlook for future Wales, was funded through research grants, industry and supported by the Welsh Government as an innovation hub to create new pathways to flood resilience. Following two decades of international success, our research has shown the benefits of nature-based solutions such as restoring soil health to be more absorbent to excess rain. The Brecon region was a ground-breaking pilot implementing such approaches at scale, pioneering a new era of the built environment. Both private and public investment supported the emergence of a new School of Architecture and Engineering within the Water Research Institute, leading the development of new biomaterials and construction methods which are nature positive.”
— Bronwen Morgan, Head of Water Research Institute in Wales
Collective strength
Representation and collective decision-making supports community action and resilience.
In 2050 Wales is a global centre for flood and coastal resilience with the Water Research Institute leading the way. The Institute is co-hosted by Cardiff, Aberystwyth and Bangor Universities to collate best-practice stories, innovation, and examples of how to empower communities and government to restore balance in water environments and enable Welsh resilience. Back in 2035, Wales hosted the first Water Environments Conference of Parties, inviting other countries with communities and environment increasingly at risk of flooding and climate change to a knowledge exchange and collectively commit to ecosystem regeneration that would underpin future flood resilience.
As a nimble legislator and following the lead of New Zealand who enshrined all major natural assets in law and created legislation allowing rivers, biomes and animal kingdoms to advocate for their rights, Wales created a similar model called the Nature Commons. The Nature Commons as a piece of legislation spans a few initiatives from collecting nature data, accessing green infrastructure funding, to better communication between communities and nature. For example, by using emerging technology as an interface to interpret and represent otherwise complex data about river’s biodiversity and health, we can better understand nature’s needs and respond to them by changing the way we manage land. The Well-being of Future Generations Act ensures Wales considers nature as a stakeholder, using Nature Commons as a forward-looking approach of working alongside nature and Water Environments, creating knowledge base and resources for the future communities to inherit and build on.
“I’m part of the local flood asset maintenance crew, taking pride in our ecosystem expertise. Regularly, we check on the river’s health, tracking our progress towards annual goals. It feels great to be recognised by the local community for my efforts in maintaining our flood resilient assets. I’ve just settled into a new, innovative village, wishing I’d moved sooner. Here, community collaboration on flood management and upstream coordination is the norm. It’s comforting to know that community voices can lead to grassroots local change which is supported and funded by the government.”
— Halima Abdi, 34, Local resident