Recent Projects

Property Flood Resilience Database

The Property Flood Resilience Database (PFR-d) is a database to ‘log’ measures taken to improve the flood resilience of properties, which have previously been flooded, or which are at risk of flooding. The database will be linked with insurer’s existing underwriting systems with the aim of improving the insurance offering for these properties. Often properties which have been flooded in the past, or which are classed as at risk of flooding struggle to purchase affordable insurance cover. Those who do have cover may have very high excesses on any flood damage claims.

The aim of the PFR-d is to enable insurers to understand the flood resilience measures that are taken in properties and use the available information to assess the improved resilience and amended risk levels for these properties. The project team, comprising of BRE, AXA Insurance and LexisNexis, with the addition of Liverpool City Council, are working towards launching the PFR-d.

Urban Flood Resilience – Property Flood Resilience Database (Innovate – UK Funded)

The urban flood resilience project through dataset integration (UFR) has further developed the Property Flood Resilience Database (PFR-d) that has been created by BRE, AXA and Lexis Nexis.  The PFR-d allows insurers to identify where property owners have taken measures to assess and manage their flood risk.  The UFR project integrates further publicly available flood data, including local authority flood information, water/flood infrastructure asset datasets and satellite datasets that show previous flooding.  The extended PFR-d also contains a PFR-score linked to a surveyor app to quantify the risk reduction from property flood resilience measures taken.  The client base for the extended PFR-d will be insurers, but also urban local authorities.  The PFR-d will have added functionality and will allow bespoke integration of datasets for cities and groups of local authorities.  The project has involved the creation of training courses and a certification scheme for PFR-surveyors, who will use the PFR-app to upload resilience data to the PFR-d.

Flood Resilient Repair Demonstration

The BRE Centre for Resilience created a demonstration home as part of the BRE Innovation Park at Watford which has been adapted to be resistant and resilient to flooding. It is designed to keep water out, but if it does get it in it is designed to manage water removal, dry out quickly and be suitable to move back into in a very short time after a flood incident. Further information is available from: Flood Resilient Repair House.

Adaptation of new buildings

The Building Research Establishment (BRE), was commissioned to conduct this research project on behalf of the Adaptation Sub-Committee (ASC) of the Committee on Climate Change. The aim of this research is to help to better understand the costs, benefits, drivers and barriers (real and perceived) that designers and builders associate with making buildings fit for the future climate. The research paid particular attention to the management of the risks of, and resilience to, flooding (river and coastal) and overheating as these are both risks that must be managed today and are likely to be exacerbated due to climate change in the future.