The Flood Hub is a partnership website between The Flood Hub People, The Environment Agency, United Utilities and the Cumbria, Lancashire and the Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire Strategic Flood Partnerships. It is funded by the North West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee and was launched on the 5th November 2018.
The Flood Hub
The Flood Hub is designed to be an online platform of flood resilience information for those at risk of flooding.
It is funded by the North West Regional Flood and Coastal Committee (RFCC), through Local Levies from Lead Local Flood Authorities. The North West RFCC is one of 12 in England, established under the Flood and Water Management Act 2010 to take an overview of flood and coastal erosion risk management across the North West.
The Flood Hub People wrote the content and worked with website developers to create the website. Partners provide support to The Flood Hub for the website. The Flood Hub People manage the day-to-day maintenance of the website and social media accounts, create and publish new content, develop new features and deal with enquiries.
The Environment Agency support The Flood Hub People to develop the website and continue to provide updates for Flood Risk Management Scheme pages. United Utilities support The Flood Hub People to develop the website. The North West Strategic Flood Partnerships of Cumbria, Lancashire, Greater Manchester, Merseyside and Cheshire support The Flood Hub People to develop the website.
The website was developed as a direct result of feedback we gained from The Flood Hub People’s engagement with communities that were affected by Storms Desmond and Eva in December 2015. It was clear that people wanted:
- One place where they could find flood information to improve knowledge and awareness around flooding and flood risk.
- To understand the jargon used in flood risk management.
- A website that was easy to navigate with downloadable resources.
- To be able to find out what was happening in their area.
- To see what others are doing to cope with flooding.
The Flood Hub People are the driving force behind The Flood Hub website, we create and publish new content and resources, develop new features and respond to flood related enquiries. Our work has resulted in around half a million users visiting the website.
We also manage The Flood Hub social media accounts on
- X: www.x.com/thefloodhub
- Facebook: www.facebook.com/thefloodhub
- LinkedIn. : www.linkedin.com/company/TheFloodHub
Overview
The Flood Hub offers a wide range of flood related content and resources for households, businesses, communities, landowners and Risk management authorities (RMAs) to enhance their knowledge. The homepage has 12 tiles covering various topics such as planning and preparing for floods, flood recovery, Property Flood Resilience (PFR), Natural Flood Management (NFM), Sustainable Drainage Systems (SuDS), planning and development and more!
Visitors can explore the News, Events and Blogs page and access a Local Area Map detailing flood schemes, natural flood management projects, community flood groups and more. The Flood Hub also issues a quarterly newsletter packed full of interesting and useful flood related information.
Additionally, our flood warning widget highlights the current number of flood alerts, flood warnings and severe flood warnings that there are in the North West.
Currently, over 270 different local authorities, partner agencies and first, second and third sector organisations direct communities and residents through to The Flood Hub via their webpages.
Flood Risk Management Schemes
Flood Hub hosts information on a number of Flood Risk Management Schemes (FRMS) across the North West that are either proposed, in progress or completed. The content is provided by Risk Management Authorities, allowing users to see what is happening in their area to help manage flood risk. The pages contain information about the scheme, together with any updates and newsletters. The FRMS are also displayed on our Local Area Map.
What We Offer…
Content Creation
Having written content and created the resources for The Flood Hub, we are able to produce flood-related content for other websites. We create text and graphics in a range of formats to engage your audience. If this is something that you would like more information about, please contact us on [email protected] and we can discuss this with you further.
Education Packages
The Flood Hub People have developed education packages containing lessons and resources for schools and young people. These materials can be accessed on the ‘Learning’ page of The Flood Hub, by clicking here.
The first lesson pack, which launched in 2021, aims to increase young people’s knowledge of flooding and flood risk management. They are pitched at KS2 level (ages 7-11), although a lot of the material included can be adapted for other key stage levels.
The second KS2 lesson pack focuses on Climate Change. This launched in 2023 and aims to increase young people’s awareness of what it is, the effects it can have and what we can do to help reduce them.
Each lesson pack contains a PowerPoint lesson, a lesson plan with teachers’ notes and resources, such as worksheets and instructions which may be required for in-class exercises or homework.
We are always looking to further develop our ‘Learning’ Section and have worked with other organisations to produce educational resources, such as the Landscapes to Lifescapes Digital Exhibition in partnership with the University of Hull, Lancaster University and the Environment Agency, as well as our Low Crosby GCSE Flood Management Case Study, which we created in partnership with the Environment Agency and Geography Southwest. If you would like to work with us on an Educational Resource or have a topic in mind that you think would be useful for us to cover, please get in touch at [email protected].