Transforming our Approach
to Groundwater Flood Risk

Linking our mining heritage with a more flood and climate-resilient future through groundwater research.

Project Groundwater Northumbria is funded by the Department of Environment, Food & Foreign Affairs £200 million Flood and Coastal Innovation Programmes (FCIP). The programmes will drive innovation in flood and coastal resilience and adaptation to a changing climate. The FCIP programmes are managed by the Environment Agency.

Gateshead Council has secured grant funding to enhance our understanding of groundwater and improve our response to flooding.

This comes after a major groundwater flood event in 2016, along with several smaller incidents. Given the impact of existing mineworkings on groundwater in our region, understanding and predicting its behaviour is especially challenging.

To achieve our goals, we have identified three key actions:

Firstly, we plan to increase awareness, understanding, and preparedness of local communities through innovative approaches and technologies.
Secondly, we will install groundwater monitoring devices by drilling into the ground to track water levels, which will provide valuable information for building maps and models.
Finally, we will combine all the data to determine the areas most at risk and explore new ways to mitigate the risk. The project emphasizes both innovation and learning, and we are committed to trying fresh approaches and learning from them.