5. Understand and define the appraisal need

This section describes how to understand and define the need for an appraisal to develop successful FCERM appraisal solutions.

Identify the problem and its effect on the community

You must understand the problems caused by flood or erosion risk and include any issues with the current approach to its management. You must also identify any constraints on potential solutions, for example legal obligations on any FCERM solution and opportunities to contribute towards wider objectives like improving local amenities. Doing this will help you define the problem your project must address.

You must define your FCERM problem in terms of flood or erosion risk and how this may change over time.

You must define:

  • the probability and consequence of flood events or coastal erosion
  • the causes of risk, for example asset condition and land use change
  • the source of risk, for example rivers, surface or ground water, sediment starvation
  • how the risk may change over time if no action is taken
  • the impacts of different future climate change scenarios
  • issues with the current local approach to FCERM

There may be many other reasons why you should consider a particular location for an FCERM project. This could include opportunities presented in the plans of a local partner. However, describing flood or erosion risk, its management and how it may change over time is a primary starting point for all FCERM projects.

Your description of the problem should:

  • include how it relates to community resilience – for example to plan for, respond to, protect against and recover from flooding

It should not include a pre-judged solution – for example if a wall is needed to protect a place

Understand uncertainties

Appraisal is an iterative exercise. This means you should check your decisions and update your appraisal as your knowledge improves.

In the early stages of appraisal you should make the most of readily available information. You should identify how much confidence you have in the information you use and how it informs your project.

You should consider:

  • present circumstances like asset condition or land use
  • historic information and the reliability of any trends
  • forecasts and how robust are their assumptions

Your project will not need to reduce or remove all uncertainties and you may identify more later.

Identify and involve stakeholders and potential partners

Stakeholders are anyone who may be affected by the project.

Partners are those with a formal governance role in steering and potentially helping to fund the project.

You must assess the extent and level to which stakeholders and local partners should be involved in the project. This will change as they will be able to help you refine your list.

Involving others can help you define the appraisal need in areas such as:

  • local knowledge of flooding or erosion impacts
  • observation on natural processes or human interventions affecting risk
  • identification and provision of useful information
  • likelihood of possible funding sources towards future solutions
  • identifying opportunities to link FCERM solutions to wider local initiatives

It is critical that stakeholder agree with the problem definition and scope of your project. This will help you build the relationships your project will need to develop acceptable solutions potentially involving partnerships for joint working and funding.

Place the project in its strategic FCERM context

You should use relevant FCERM strategies and plans to help you understand your appraisal need. This will help you avoid delays due to missing important details and it will save your project time.

The National FCERM Strategy is the main reference for the wider legal framework for managing flooding and coastal change in England. Your project cannot implement all aspects of the National FCERM Strategy but you must make sure that your recommended solution is consistent with it.

You should use it to identify where:

  • you need to change how future flooding or coastal erosion risks are managed in your project area to comply with the strategy
  • the strategy will influence the type of the solutions you will consider in addressing your problem

Local FCERM plans and strategies often contain information about:

  • the economic, environmental and social assets at risk from flooding or coastal change
  • the current flood defences or coastal protection works in place
  • preferred options or policies

They often identify who was involved in their preparation so you may be able to gain their assistance with your project now.

Quantify and qualify flood and erosion risk

You must have a good understanding of the current and future levels of flood or erosion risk and your project risk and uncertainties so that you can develop the best solutions.

Large, complex projects will have time and money for detailed modelling with multiple data sets if needed. However, many projects are relatively small and it may be sufficient to use existing information.

The information you use can include:

  • flood maps, erosion risk maps and existing models
  • physical processes
  • previous floods and historical erosion rates
  • flood and erosion management activities
  • social and environmental data
  • local knowledge from people and stakeholders
  • lessons learned from other projects and research

You should only use data that is relevant to the problem you are describing. It’s helpful if you flag data that may be useful when you start exploring possible solutions.

You should indicate the quality of all sources of data you use. You should also describe any uncertainties and how they may affect your project. This is helpful when deciding if new data would be of value to your project or not.

Identify potential constraints and opportunities

Constraints are factors that could affect what solutions you can carry out or where you need additional time and resources to address them.

They may include:

  • the need to meet specific legal obligations, for example within a local navigation act
  • where the activities of others may affect the options you consider, for example an adjacent railway line

Opportunities are where your project may be able to contribute towards wider objectives while addressing the FCERM problem. You should work with stakeholders and local partners to identify potential opportunities. Partnership working could help to attract additional resources and contributions.

Identifying constraints and opportunities will help define the scale and scope of your project and when you set project objectives and CSFs in section 5.

You must appraise on an equal basis

Actions to manage flood and erosion risk come in all shapes and sizes and extent of influence. You must consider the different options you identify to address your problem on an equal basis. This means you must use the same appraisal period and project boundaries.

Appraisal period

You should normally use a 100-year appraisal period for most FCERM schemes and strategies. If your options involve measures with a shorter life should allow for their replacement over the appraisal period. This allows you to fairly compare them with options containing long lived assets.

Using the same appraisal period also allows you to consider long-term climate change impacts, adaptive options and sustainability.

Project boundaries

You must set geographical boundaries for your project. These define the area affected by the problems your project must address and the area likely to be affected by the options you propose.

You will often need to subdivide larger areas into separate flood compartments, coastal cells or frontages. This allows you to consider localised solutions for FCERM alongside those with wider influence.

Inputs to define the appraisal need

You should define your appraisal need using a range of information about your project area.

This includes important information:

  • about the current local approach to FCERM
  • about the condition, and where relevant life, of FCERM and related assets
  • from the local FCERM strategy or asset management plan (AMP)
  • about flood / erosion risk, including published maps, records of past events and monitoring reports
  • from the operations teams of appropriate RMAs
  • from relevant local partners including other infrastructure providers
  • from local community knowledge

Other sources of information

Examples of primary sources include statutory and non-statutory plans such as:

You should use existing material and input from the community and local partners to define the appraisal needs at early feasibility stages. As your project progresses, for example to inform preparation of a formal business case, you’re likely to need additional information.

This might include:

  • environmental assessment
  • use of existing computer models
  • new computer models
  • information on climate change impacts ie climate change allowances
  • studies on physical processes and ground investigations
  • social and economic impact assessments
  • plans and strategies of partners to inform potential constraints and opportunities

Checkpoints to define the appraisal need

This step in the appraisal process is complete when you understand the:

  • extent of the problem that the appraisal will address
  • implications for the scope of the appraisal

You can confirm whether your appraisal should continue in its current form by following 2 steps:

1: Check there is a risk that needs to be managed

You should be able to explain:

  • why the project is required
  • what FCERM risks it manages
  • how these risks are predicted to change over time

You may decide that you do not need to manage a risk if:

  • the probability of a risk occurring is low or the consequences of the risk are small
  • uncertainty over current risk is high
  • future risks are uncertain

In these cases you may decide to monitor the risks instead. Monitoring risks over a set period will mean that you can measure how they change. You could do an appraisal later when you have a clearer understanding of the risks and how they may develop. Your description of the problem will help you decide if or when this should happen.

If there is a high risk you should continue with the appraisal and explore how the risk can be managed. A high risk means that probability is high or the consequences of the risk are significant.

2: Check whether there are conflicts in the description of the problem at scheme or strategy level

You must consider if there are still conflicts between the description of the problem at the strategy level compared with the SMP or FRMP, or at the project level compared with the strategy.

If such conflicts still exist, you should refer to the appraisal in the SMP or in the FRMP and note the reasons for the discrepancy. You must feedback your findings at the end of the appraisal to the SMP or the FRMP. These conflicts should not stop you continuing with the appraisal.

Outputs to define the appraisal need

By the end of this section, you should have defined the appraisal need and can explain:

  • the problem
  • why the project is required
  • the appraisal period
  • the appraisal boundaries

You will have used your stakeholder engagement plan (SEP) to communicate the outcome of this appraisal stage to your stakeholders and received their support.

Read the full technical guidance

If you need to understand the full technical content you should see section 5 – understand and define the appraisal needin the FCERM technical guidance