Guidance on assessing flood and coastal defence assets

This guidance helps asset managers assess flood and coastal defence assets to determine levels of deterioration and residual life.

Documents

FCERM assets: deterioration modelling and WLC analysis - technical report (2 MB) PDF

FCERM assets: deterioration modelling and WLC analysis - appendix A (3 MB) PDF

FCERM assets: deterioration modelling and WLC analysis - appendix B (1 MB) PDF

Assessment and measurement of asset deterioration - summary (77 KB) PDF

Practical guidance on determining asset deterioration and the use of condition grade deterioration curves: revision 1 (4 MB) PDF

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Details

Objectives

The Environment Agency has produced new practical guidance for asset managers in all flood and coastal risk management authorities. This new guidance will help asset managers to assess flood and coastal defence assets under different conditions and maintenance regimes. It will also:

  • assess their deterioration
  • determine their remaining life
  • calculate when interventions may be required
  • decide when assets may need to be replaced

This new guidance will also be useful for other applications, such as assessing changes to a wider stock of assets as part of assessments of future investment and funding needs.

Outcome

The guidance is based on a wide range of evidence, including:

  • historic data
  • monitoring and expert input from practitioners on how different maintenance regimes, environmental conditions and loading affect asset deterioration

As deterioration varies from asset to asset, it’s important to use engineering judgement and practical experience alongside this guidance. This will allow the deterioration curves to be applied and adapted appropriately.

This guidance is supported by a technical report that describes the methods, tools and data used during its development.

The project ran from 2007 to 2013.

Published 23 February 2021