Written question WQ82598
- Asked by
- Heledd FychanPlaid
- To be answered by
- Minister for Climate Change
- Tabled
- Due
- Answered
- Time to answer
- 8 days
Question
What percentage of the Natural Resources Wales budget is allocated and spent on natural intervention methods to help reduce flood risk, and are they prioritized over other approaches?
Answer
Answered by Minister for Climate Change
As part of our manifesto, this Government has committed to delivering nature-based flood management in all major river catchments to expand wetland and woodland habitats.
Natural flood management (NFM) is one of the priority areas and this position is set out clearly in the National Strategy for Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management (FCERM).
We do not limit the proportion of capital, which can be used for NFM for flood risk management schemes and such methods must be considered in all schemes. As part of the new FCERM business case guidance, all business cases for schemes funded through Natural Resources Wales (NRW) and local authorities must consider NFM as an option and where it is not appropriate to undertake an NFM or hybrid scheme must justify this decision.
In April 2020, the last Welsh Government announced a £1m programme for NFM schemes to provide 100% support to local authorities and NRW for this work. Since then the funding for this programme has more than doubled with more than £2.89m awarded for 15 schemes over the two years of the programme (April 2020 to March 2022).
The NFM guidance provided alongside application forms for this programme sets out the eligibility for funding and subject to applications meeting this criteria, funding was made available.
Over the two-year NFM programme (2019-22), we have allocated £419,000 to NRW to develop four schemes across Wales. This is against capital budgets of £13.533m (2020-21) and £17.211m (2021-22).
NRW will also invest some of its annual revenue funding into this work, including research, and will work with the Welsh Government across wider policy areas to embed the delivery of nature-based solutions, including measures to address flooding through sustainable water management across wider policy, programmes and plans.
Capital funding for NFM schemes is available for all new flood schemes and will continue to be encouraged following the conclusion of the two-year NFM programme. These schemes will be considered and prioritised alongside all other schemes, based on an agreed scoring criteria, which takes into account risk, past flood events, benefits and costs.