Flooding is rarely out of the news as areas of northern Europe experience floods or suffer the long-term effects in the aftermath.

Most recently, towns across Cumbria fell victim, and the incidence of flooding is almost certain to rise.

As efforts increase in tackling this problem – last month the Queen’s speech included plans for legislation to protect communities from flooding – Bradford is a leader in the field.

The district’s water-management expertise is such that it is one of only eight cities in Europe at the centre of an important project set up to help local authorities deal with floods in urban areas.

FloodResilienCity is an EU-funded project, focusing on eight cities along rivers and watercourses – Bradford, Brussels and Leuven in Belgium, Dublin, Mainz in Germany, Nijmegen in The Netherlands, and the French cities of Orleans and Paris.

Twelve partners – mostly local authorities and agencies from the cities – are involved in the project, with Bradford Council and the University of Sheffield representing the UK.

“What we are doing here applies to all cities,” says Tony Poole, Bradford Council’s principal engineer in drainage. “The objective is for each of the cities to come up with an agreed strategy to look at flood risk management in light of climate change.

“Through looking at what happens in different countries, we are learning something new which we can then adapt for our own area.”

Bradford’s experiences relate not only to the flooding problems along the Aire Valley, but smaller watercourses from which equally valuable lessons can be learned.

“Bradford Beck may be small compared with The Rhine, but the problems we have to deal with in terms of keeping people safe, and in relation to regeneration in urban areas, are the same,” says Tony.

The project centres on four basic headings, known as the four As: awareness, avoidance, alleviation and assistance.

Bradford Council’s detailed work on possible flooding scenarios around Bradford Beck, carried out as part of the city centre regeneration, has come under the microscope, as have watercourses in Ilkley.

And studies on the River Aire, examining how climate change could lead to more extensive flooding and more intense flooding in existing flood zones, have also been highlighted.

“Some were beyond official areas of concern and would be more difficult to deal with,” says Tony. “After short, prolonged rainfall, there is little warning and the response tends to be reactive rather than preventative.”

Since the project was launched last year, he has travelled to partner cities and learned much from their work.

“The Belgian equivalent of our Environment Agency has a website with live information on rivers and watercourse levels in the Brussels area, enabling members of the public to see what is happening where they live,” says Tony.

“They are also doing a lot of interesting work on protecting ancient properties from erosion and water damage.”

In Orleans, emphasis has been on the impact of the River Loire, which causes problems in times of heavy rainfall. There, the authorities are looking at how to protect the infrastructure and vital services such as the cleansing depot.

One of the key questions is can we keep floods out of cities, or should we learn to live with the possibility of being flooded? And how can we best adapt our cities to cope with flooding?

In Bradford, work carried out by a student from the School of Engineering in Paris, on a special interactive website showing how to protect your home, is also generating interest and being developed.

Bradford Council, together with the University of Sheffield’s department of civil engineering, is also member of North Sea Skills Integration and New Technologies. Partners include a Dutch water company, technical universities in Hamburg and Delft, the Norwegian Institute, whose studies focus on archaeology, and the University of Abertay in Dundee.

“The project is about how we keep up to speed with new science and technology, because regulation and best practice always lags behind progress in science,” says Tony.

“We are looking at web-based modules designed for specific disciplines within the local authority such as planning, highways and drainage.”

Involvement in European projects is also important in helping to attract funding for further flooding and water management work in Bradford.