The EPSRC announced just before Christmas their intention to hold a research sandpit to support transformative, multidisciplinary, novel research projects in response to the LWEC Flooding and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Research Strategy.

Across the UK, at least 6 million properties are at risk of flooding. Natural environmental hazards, and flooding in particular, have been cited by the National Security Review as one of the key risks facing the UK.

A range of studies have examined scenarios related to future UK flood risk, for example, the Foresight Future Flooding study highlights that, under 3 of the 4 future scenarios, the management of flood and coastal defence structures rank amongst the most significant contributory responses to risk reduction.

The Living With Environmental Change programme, a cross-government funding partnership for Environmental Change research, has recently developed a research strategy for Flooding and Coastal Erosion. A draft version of the report has been published on the LWEC website:  UK Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Research Strategy (PDF 990KB).

In response to the recommendations of the report EPSRC are intending to hold a Sandpit from 16-20 April 2012 directed at developing creative and novel research projects to address some of the challenges identified in this report.

A call for expressions of interest for participants from a wide range of disciplines will be announced in mid January with a closing date for of 20 February. Further details will be made available here.

For more information on EPSRC sandpits can be found on the EPSRC website.