Flood infrastructure Asset management and Investment in Renovation, adaptation and maintenance

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Flooding is a major risk for loss of life and economic damage in the North Sea Region (NSR). Flood protection is the cornerstone of our strategy to reduce these risks with benefit-cost ratio of 6:1. The >100Bn Euro worth infrastructure assets that protect us from flooding in NSR, such as dykes, sluices and dams are ageing (many are 70-100y old) and often its performance is no longer at the desired level. The flood protection infrastructure needs renovation, adaptation, and maintenance all across NSR. The overall objective of the FAIR project is to reduce flood risk across the NSR by demonstrating climate change adaptation solutions to improve the performance of flood protection infrastructure. FAIR demonstrates improved approaches for cost-effective upgrading and maintenance, optimising investments across national-system-asset levels, as well as applying adaptive, innovative technical designs. FAIR builds upon NSR INTERREG IV results (ia MARE, SAWA) and state-of-the-art EU research from its partners (Deltares, TUHH, Sayers). FAIR guides the full-scale implementation of reinforcement, upgrade and maintenance programmes of dykes, sluices, dams, flood gates and pumping stations at target sites in UK, B, NL, D, DK, SE worth >1Bn/y until 2020. A transnational approach is vital to accelerate learning, as there is no budget or time for ‘trial and error’. FAIR gathers the major asset owners in the NSR (eg RWS, LSBG, MOW), the first international collaboration of its kind.

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