More about Fens 2100+ and FAQs

We are developing 5 Catchment Baseline Reports which provide an overview of each catchment. The reports will give an insight into how flood risk management assets currently operate. They will also provide information on the current and future flood risk of each catchment.

Each report will describe what types of flood risk management assets are situated in the catchment and explain the benefits they provide to the area, as well as the costs to operate them. It will also explore future funding challenges and investment opportunities in our flood risk assets across the Fens landscape.

The Fens 2100+ Case for Change document addresses the need to manage risk for the long term in the Fens. To be published in late 2025, it will achieve measure 1.5.4 in the National Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management Strategy for England: ‘By 2025 the Environment Agency will work with farmers, land managers, water companies, internal drainage boards and other partners to develop a long-term plan for managing future flood risk in the Fens.’

It will explore the value of the Fens, nationally, regionally, and locally, and set out a strategic case for continued and enhanced investment in flood risk management to ensure we have a vibrant and sustainable future Fens. It will highlight the flood risk and wider impacts that will arise if decisions are not made about future landscape scale choices and provides the framework for making those strategic choices, including tangible Partnership actions and governance.

The Fens landscape is largely below sea level – it’s at the forefront of climate change. Water levels must be managed 24 hours a day, 365 days of the year. 

Living and working in the Fens is only possible because of around 17,000 flood risk management and water level management assets, such as pumping stations and defences. Without these, the area would revert to marshy fens and lowlands, liable to frequent flooding from the sea and rivers. 

Added to this are several pressures including agricultural demands, population growth, areas of socio-economic deprivation, water availability for people and farming, increased flood risk and sea level rise. Many of the flood risk assets were built in the 1960s primarily to manage the land for food production and will need significant investment to maintain them in the medium and long term. 

Over the next 100 years, an additional investment of  at least £4.5bn will be needed to manage flood risk in the Fens – that’s based on today’s cost and not accounting for climate change. Applying current flood risk management funding rules to that £4.5bn would mean about 50% of it would be funded, the rest isn’t.

Fens 2100+ will make sure we support how we deliver flood risk management now, but we’re also looking to the medium and long-term to try to determine what's the right investment we need to make across this landscape that achieves the outcomes that we all want – for people, the environment, and more widely.

This is also about making sure we are putting the investment in the right places, not limiting future choices, and helping this landscape adapt to climate change into the future – rather than just doing what we’ve always done.

• Total area is over 400,000 hectares 
• 4500km of watercourse 
• Water levels must be managed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year
• 318 pumping stations
• Nearly 400,000 people are living in areas of the Fens at risk of flooding from main rivers and the sea
• Managing water in the Fens is estimated to deliver in excess of £58bn worth of benefits through direct protection to people and properties, business, critical infrastructure, agricultural land, and through indirect benefits to the local economy 
• Defences currently provide protection to 500km of road and rail infrastructure 
• 9 National Nature Reserves 
• 3700 (approx.) farms and 96% of the land is classified and agricultural 
• Over 3800 listed buildings and over 250 schedules monuments
• 49 Sewage Treatment Works 

• Environment Agency
• Association of Drainage Authorities (ADA)
• Internal Drainage Boards (IDBs)
• National Farmers Union (NFU)
• Anglian Northern and Great Ouse Regional Flood & Coastal Committees (RFCCs)
• Anglian Water
• Natural England
• Cambridgeshire County Council
• Lincolnshire County Council
• Norfolk County Council
• Cambridgeshire & Peterborough Combined Authority

We’re responsible for developing a strategic case for continued investment in flood risk management across the Fens landscape and setting out the flood risk management investment choices required to ensure we have a vibrant and flourishing landscape, that’s adapting to the challenges of climate change.

Amy Shaw - Fens Flood Risk Manager 

Steven Trewhella - Fens Technical Director 

Tom Freer - Project Manager 

Andy Bailey - Senior Strategy Adviser

Louise Wilson - Strategy Adviser

Amy Capon - Engagement Adviser

Faye Scott - Engagement Adviser 

Darren Trumper - Senior Adviser - Great Ouse Catchment