How can the UK prepare for the floods to come?

Experts once based defences on how to withstand once-a-century deluges. As floods becomes more common, there are new possibilities to consider

The government formally identified flooding as the greatest climate change related threat to the UK in 2012, a warning amply illustrated by the current floods devastating the north of England.

The 2012 report said up to 3.6 million people could be at risk from flooding by the middle of the century. So what can be done about it? Every time a community is flooded the understandable response from local people tends to be the same: more should have been done. Higher barriers, bigger walls.