For towns and cities across the globe, addressing the problem of flooding in a changing climate is a key ingredient to a safe, healthy future.

In this area, Bradford is a centre of excellence, well-known throughout Europe and further afield for its water-management expertise.

The trailblazing Bradford Council team – one of a handful of designated ‘lead local flood authorities’ in the UK – attracts officials from across the EU, and is now acting as a training ground for students working in the field to build on their knowledge.

As a lead local flood authority, the Council has to carry out various processes by 2015. These include preparing a preliminary flood-risk assessment.

“We have to assess the future risk due to climate change and other factors from all sources of flooding,” explains Bradford Council’s principal engineer in drainage, Tony Poole.

“This leads to preparing flood-risk maps and flood-hazard maps for the district. The final part of the jigsaw is for us to come up with plans to mitigate those risks.”

Recently, four French students joined the experts at Jacob’s Well. Three of the them, Margaux Chevalier, Camille Poret and Deborah Fraix-Burnet, are studying at Ecole des Ingeneieurs de la Ville in Paris, and the fourth, Laurie Lepage, a student at Ecole des Mines d’Ales near Nimes, is working on a project at the University of Abertay in Dundee.

The students are working on the EU-funded FloodResilienCity project, focusing on eight European cities along rivers and watercourses, including Bradford and Paris.

They are concentrating on identifying what sort of information it is vital to gather during a flood, and prioritising it. “They are looking at the data we have access to at present, how useful is it, and how we put it in a manageable form,” says Tony.

Camille says: “We are looking at the recording system. You have to gather information such as the different elements involved in flooding, which are used to create maps. We collect data on, for instance, water courses, canals, gullies and culverts across the district.”

At present, no single body holds all the information needed. Various organisations, including the Council, Yorkshire Water, the Environment Agency and British Waterways, hold their own data. “No-one has access to all the records in a standard format,” says data collection team member Sydney Simpson. This is something that the team is addressing.Camille says: “There is a problem with a lack of communication and sharing between all the different agencies and the data is in different formats. If it is not consistent, you cannot be fully efficient.

“I now know what data you need for good modelling and can apply it back in France.

Deborah is working with geographic information systems which enable users to analyse and interpret data.

Margaux is concentrating on an incident recording system. “I’m working on the sorts of questions we should ask people affected by flooding, from the first call they make to report it, and about how we analyse that information and ask follow-up questions.”

Important questions such as, ‘Who is at risk, and what is at risk?’ would come first, and additional information at the times or later, would include the direction of the water flow.

The three-month student placements are also beneficial in that experts in Bradford can learn from them. Paris, for example, uses ‘balancing reservoirs’ which intercept rainwater and storm flows, and protect the centre of the city from flooding.

Laurie has been helping to develop a virtual flood city, devised by the University of Abertay in Dundee. This is aimed at non-professionals and allows people to use an interactive computer game to look at different flooding scenarios.

“Some of the scenarios in Bradford fit here, such as river flooding, overland flows, sewer overflows and water-course flooding,” says Laurie. “The game also changes features so that if people in Spain are playing, the buildings will look Spanish.”

The ‘city’ has been based in part on Ilkley. “It contains lots of flood scenarios, with its position, moors, river, culverts, overland flows and property flooding.

“I’ve looked in newspaper archives and spoken to people about the floods in the past,” adds Laurie.

Players can choose different ways of diverting water, such as using sandbags, and see how effective it would be in a real-life situation.

The resulting plans drawn up by the Bradford team have to be agreed by the Environment Agency on behalf of the Department for Environment, Food and Rural Affairs.