The service, one of the key actions outlined in Scotland's first National Flood Resilience Strategy, will provide support and advice to communities and partners on building flood resilience. It will also oversee high-value flood protection schemes.
Other key actions in the strategy include:
• Research into adapting urban and rural landscapes for flood mitigation
• Support for smaller flood protection schemes and property-level resilience measures
• Improved use of data to inform decision-making and raise public awareness of flood risks
The Scottish Government has allocated an additional £15 million in the draft 2025-2026 budget to support the implementation of the strategy and wider flood resilience and coastal adaptation efforts.
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Acting Cabinet Secretary for Net Zero and Energy Gillian Martin said: "Floods like we saw in October 2023 during Storm Babet show that global warming is already influencing weather events in Scotland. Over the coming decades, we will see greater economic, social and environmental impacts as sea levels rise, and rainfall intensities and river flows increase because of climate change. By 2080, it is estimated that the number of properties at risk of flooding in Scotland could rise from 284,000 to almost 400,000.
"Our National Flood Resilience Strategy therefore puts communities at its heart – with a focus on building community flood resilience and reducing the impacts of flooding on people, businesses, and housing.
"It supports an increase in the range and rate of delivery of actions both to manage our flood exposure, and to reduce the impacts of flooding when it does occur.
"This builds on work already under way to create more flood resilient places. In addition to the £42 million we provide annually to local authorities for flood resilience, we have committed an additional £150 million over the course of this Parliament to deliver improved flood resilience and we propose to commit a further £15 million as part of our draft Budget for 2025-26."
The Strategy will be delivered via an implementation plan that will take forward policy development for six priority action areas, starting with the establishment of the Flood Advisory Service.
