A new national centre is to be established in Dumfries that will help improve Scotland's responses to natural hazards, such as flooding.

The centre will be located at Crichton Campus and will also act as a national hub, coordinating work to discover how communities and local emergency responders can prepare for an expected increase in natural hazard events occurring as a result of climate change.

The centre will look to support and help coordinate:

• Further improvement in Scotland's resilience to natural hazards such as severe weather and flooding, augmenting existing systems and complement work of partners such as Adaptation Scotland

• Building community resilience across Scotland, learning from existing good practice across the South of Scotland

• Improvement in the protection and resilience of Scotland's communities to flooding

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• Development of Scotland's resilience research capability

• Provision of resilience training and development opportunities and ensuring the identification and sharing of good practice

• Improvement in local multi-agency resilience arrangements and evaluation of the benefits to responders of investment in flood warning technology in the region.

Minister for Environment and Climate Change, Paul Wheelhouse, said: "As the recent severe weather, in the North of Scotland, has shown we cannot be complacent and residents of Dumfries and Galloway themselves understand only too well the impact of such events, having experienced horrendous conditions over the festive period.

"This centre will provide a focus of intelligence and skills and networking of good practice that will fulfil a national role to support emergency planning and response activities across all of Scotland.

"The facilities at Crichton Campus are first class and the proximity of the Campus to other institutions, including the Crichton Carbon Centre, the water rescue expertise of the local fire and rescue service and a very experienced team at Dumfries and Galloway Council provides an excellent opportunity for resilience partners, academia and the Scottish Government to work collaboratively on climate and flooding related resilience issues and to optimise multi-agency working."

Those involved in the new initiative include Dumfries and Galloway Council, Met Office, SEPA and emergency response organisations such as Police Scotland and the Scottish Fire and Rescue Service, as well as the Scottish Funding Council and the Crichton Trust.

(JP/MH)