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Exercise Watermark final reports - better preparing us for flooding

Exercise Watermark was the most successful flood exercise held in the UK. The final reports identify where lessons can be learnt and makes recommendations to the UK and Welsh Governments to help improve our preparedness for widespread flooding.

We managed the exercise under the direction of Defra and the Welsh Government, which set out to test the incident management response to severe widespread flooding from the sea, surface water, rivers and reservoirs in England and Wales.

The exercise had three distinct parts:

  • a central or 'core' exercise involving government departments and emergency responders;
  • locally developed exercises to test a wider range of activities such as water rescues and evacuations;
  • and a range of community and business events.

An estimated 20,000+ participants in over 200 different venues took part. Some 2,000 of our staff took part in exercise play. The reports have been compiled from feedback and data from those who planned and participated in the exercise.

Exercise Watermark final reports

On behalf of Defra, we have reviewed what went well across all aspects of the exercise, identified where improvements can be made and produced a series of reports to share our findings.

Three reports have been presented to Defra and the Welsh Government.  They are:

  • Exercise Watermark final report - contains lessons identified by those who took part in the exercise and makes 36 recommendations to the UK and Welsh Governments to help improve our preparedness for widespread flooding.
  • Exercise Watermark planning, delivery and review - this report describes the planning, delivery and review of the exercise and the lessons that can be learnt for exercise planners.
  • Exercise Watermark a summary for communities - this summary report shares relevant findings for interested communities. It includes case studies of community activities and a summary of what will happen next to address the findings.

These reports have been published on the Defra website.

Environment Agency final report

Additionally, we have also published a report which describes what we did before and during Exercise Watermark, highlighting our response to widespread flooding incidents and how we work with other incident responders and communities to ensure that everybody is ready when flooding occurs.

Environment Agency Wales

This report focuses on the exercises held in Wales. It was produced by Environment Agency Wales on behalf of the Welsh Government, with assistance from those involved in planning and delivering Exercise Watermark in Wales. The findings of this report were fed into the national review process.