§ Lord Hunt of Chestertonasked Her Majesty's Government:
What is their current prediction for the average rise in sea level around the United Kingdom over the next (a) 10, (b) 30 and (c) 100 years; how this compares with the rise over the past 10 years; and 21WA how it affects planning decisions for coastal and estuarine developments, especially in areas already subject to flooding. [HL706]
§ The Parliamentary Under-Secretary of State, Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Lord Whitty)The UK Climate Impacts Programme (UKCIP), funded by the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs (Defra), published a report and set of climate change scenarios, referred to as the UKCIP02 scenarios, in April 2002. The report concludes that it is likely that relative sea level will continue to rise around most of the UK's shoreline, with the predicted rate of increase depending on the climate models and emission scenarios used, and the rate of vertical land movements due to natural geological causes or human influences. By the 2080s, sea level may be between 26 cm and 86 cm above the current level in south-east England.
The report also concludes that extreme sea levels will be experienced more frequently. For some east coast locations, extreme sea levels could occur between 10 and 20 times more frequently by the 2080s than they do now, under the medium-high emissions scenario.
In predicting sea level change it is important to make allowance for the natural inter-annual variability of sea level due to a number of meteorological and oceanic factors. The change of annual-mean UK sea level from year to year is approximately 5–10 cm. The Proudman Oceanographic Laboratory, with funding from Defra, is the national centre for monitoring sea level. Its records suggest that the underlying increase in mean sea level over the past few decades has been some 2 mm per year for south-east England.
The Defra publication Flood and Coastal Defence Project Appraisal Guidance 3: Economic Appraisal, advises operating authorities on the appropriate allowances for climate change when considering flood and coastal defence investments. Updated supplementary guidance was issued in the light of the UKCIP 2002 scenarios in 2003. These include recommended allowances for increases in sea level of between 4 mm and 6 mm per year, where the higher level applies to the south and east of England. Similar allowances have been built into FM measures since the mid 1980s.
In dealing with development proposals, planning policy guidance 25 issued by the Office of the Deputy Prime Minister advises planning authorities to "consult and take into account advice from the Environment Agency, which should incorporate the latest information on climate change."