Each month the Scattered Clouds blog takes a look at the wonderful world of tourism through a data and evidence-led lens, all in pursuit of transforming tourism sector data into insight of course!

Flood - November 2026

At the end of a presentation the best part of two decades ago I was asked by a member of the audience whether I had a piece of advice for those wishing to grow their tourism business. My reply? Don’t build on a floodplain.

This is advice I still stand by.

My June blog was entitled “Hot” and discussed some of the risks posed to our visitor economy by a climate characterised by higher summer temperatures and more periods with little or no rainfall. Little did I know at that stage that 2026 would see a summer in which a temperature exceeding 35°C would be recorded somewhere in Britian in each of May, June, July and August. By contrast on not a single day in the entirety of the 1980s was a temperature this high recorded.

This month I thought I would cover another climate-related topic, namely the risk posed to tourism businesses by the increasing likelihood of floods.

There are of course many different ways in which flooding can take place;

Starting with surface water flooding, sometimes known as flash flooding. This occurs when rainwater cannot drain away through normal drainage systems. The most common, though not only, circumstances in which this can take place is as a result of exceptionally heavy rainfall, and climate experts firmly believe that the probability of such events happening will increase as our climate changes in the years ahead, with the chance of extreme rainfall events throughout the year reckoned to be between 15% and 60% more likely than had been the case at the end of the 20th century. An hotel or restaurant that is on a riverbank probably recognises the chance of a flood, but the issue with surface water flooding is that it can happen just about anywhere, you don’t need to be in close proximity to a charted watercourse.

The next category relates to flooding caused by rivers and or the sea. Low-lying areas that are close to rivers or the sea are more likely to flood when water levels rise is hardly breaking news, but it is nonetheless a truism. River flooding can take place after exceptionally intense rainfall events as was the case with surface water flooding, but equally it can occur due to prolonged periods of rainfall, even if there aren’t any biblical downpours.

Flooding from seawater is rather different, it can occur due to stormy conditions coinciding with high tides, so events that are predictable only a short while before they occur, but it can also be a function of much longer-term changes in sea levels. As polar icecaps melt the sea level is rising, albeit very slowly. Over the course of decades this means that tourism assets in low lying areas that face the sea may find their future is increasingly precarious.

Groundwater flooding also appears on our list, with groundwater being the water that is usually held in rocks and soil underground. Flooding from this source happens when this water rises and flows above the surface and is most likely after periods of prolonged rainfall over many weeks or months. I wonder how many tourism businesses have a clear idea of how at risk they are from this type of flooding?

Flooding is of course not a new phenomenon. Back in 1993 the Holbeck Hall Hotel in Scarborough fell into the sea due to a clifftop landslide brought about by a sustained period of very high rainfall leading to the ground becoming saturated and unstable.

Forty years before that a far more devastating event occurred when hurricane force winds combined with a spring tide and full moon resulted in the North Sea floods, leading to the deaths of 307 people along the east coast of England.

This event was less than six months after sustained and exceptionally heavy rainfall (nine inches in less than 24 hours) led to flooding in the North Devon village of Lynmouth, claiming the lives of 34 people.

In February 2014 stormy seas hit England’s southwest coast, resulting in the iconic image of the main railway line linking much of Devon and Cornwall to the rest of the network dangling in midair following the collapse of the Dawlish sea wall. It took two months for the line to be fully repaired. With around one-in-four households not having access to a car the loss of a reliable rail link can have a tangible impact on revenues for some tourism businesses.

According to MetOffice modelling by the 2070s winters in England could be up to 35% wetter compared with the average for the period 1981-2000 under a “high emissions scenario”, but still 21% wetter under a “low emissions scenario”.

For London the range within which sea levels are projected to increase under the “low” scenario by 2100 versus 1981-2000 is 29cm to 70cm, while under the “high” scenario the range is 53cm to 115cm. Taking the UK coast in its entirety the projection is that sea levels will be 20-45cm higher by 2050 than in the 1990s.

The old adage of “don’t panic” is relevant to this discussion, as, at least to an extent, it is possible to mitigate against the risk of some types of flood.

This mitigation is often not cost free, but nor is the consequence of inaction. Being savvy in terms of the location of new tourism infrastructure makes sense, but for existing sites it is more a case of figuring out what steps can be taken to either lessen the risk of being impacted or minimise the impact should a flood occur. This latter approach involves thinking about stuff such as flooring materials, the elevation of electrical sockets and wiring, where important artefacts are stored and so on.

Ironically one of the actions that can help lessen the risk of flooding is also an action that can help reduce the impact of droughts, namely building new reservoirs, and this is a key recommendation made by the Climate Change Committee.

Most tourism entities are unlikely to suffer a flooding event, but recognising the risk and giving thought to how to manage its impact should the worse happen is a second piece of advice I would add to my initial don’t build on a floodplain.