Flood Detection and Prevention: Technological Assistance

Lord Bishop of Sheffield Excerpts

Thursday 19th March 2026 Lords Chamber

Asked by

[The Lord Bishop of Sheffield]

To ask His Majesty’s Government what assessment they have made of the use of technological assistance for flood detection and prevention.

[Lord in Waiting/Government Whip (Lord Katz) (Lab)]

My Lords, the Environment Agency routinely uses technology to improve flood detection and prevention, including enhanced warning systems, drones, and digital tools to support early detection and preparedness. It is expanding the use of remote sensing and real-time monitoring to assess the condition of flood defence assets, strengthening forecasting and optimising maintenance. In 2025, the agency published a new national flood risk assessment outlining current and future flood and coastal erosion risks across England.

[The Lord Bishop of Sheffield]

I am grateful to the Minister for that Answer. The severe flooding that we have experienced again this winter makes it clear that increasingly urgent further action is surely needed to protect homes, businesses and communities. In south Yorkshire, where the River Don has flooded to devastating effect at least three times in the past six years, Rotherham council is trialling CCTV to monitor water levels in high-risk areas. It may not sound very sophisticated, but I gather that the early warning potential is real. What steps are the Minister and his colleagues taking to consult local government to harness the very best practice and deliver the most effective innovations at scale?

[Lord Katz (Lab)]

I thank the right reverend Prelate for bringing the actions of Rotherham council to our attention. He is absolutely right that the whole of south Yorkshire has been subject to severe flooding. As he said, sometimes, as in places such as Rotherham, basic and simple solutions are the best.

To address his wider point, we are working closely with local government to ensure that lessons from recent flooding and innovations that we are seeing across the country can be adapted at scale. The purpose of the Government’s Floods Resilience Taskforce is to improve co-ordination across the whole system and translate local experience into national practice. Recently, the taskforce met in Manchester to consider how case studies from local partners in areas such as Greater Manchester—and from devolved Governments, such as Northern Ireland, in the case of the meeting the other day—including innovation in forecasting, community resilience and emergency response, can be replicated more widely. Local partners are directly engaged through regional flooding coastal committees through local resilience forums, which ensures that local knowledge, such as in Rotherham, as cited by the right reverend Prelate, on innovations to reduce flood risk through natural flood management and sustainable draining systems, informs national decisions on how best to roll out new technologies and share best practice across regions.