Flood risk warning for Edinburgh

Edinburgh's green spaces are being lost at a rate equivalent to 15-football pitches every year.

Almost two thirds of those green spaces are either being paved over by homeowners or accomodating extensions being built onto houses - a process known as urban creep.

Dr Clare Rowland led the research for the Centre for Ecology and Hydrology which is warning that's putting a strain on our drains.

She told Radio Forth News: "If you've got grass in your garden and it rains, the rain will drain through the grass into the soil. If you've paved over your front garden, then the rain that falls over that paved area will run off onto the road and go into the drainage, which can cause localised flooding if everybody has paved over their front garden.

"We looked between 1990 and 2015 and we found that Edinburgh was losing on average 15-football pitches of green land every year.

"Nine football pitches-worth was because of urban creep, and six football pitches of that was urban expansion which is where you get big new developments such as a new hospital, shopping centre, or industrial area.

"We hadn't expected the amount of green land lost to urban creep to be bigger than the amount lost through these big planned developments.

"The amount of urban area and green area you've got within the city are important for flood risk, but they're also important for wildlife. When you get very hot summers, if you've got more vegetation it keeps the city cooler. The amount of green area in the city is also important for mental health.

"This study gives us data so that we can now look at planning in an informed way so that if the Scottish Government is looking at flood risk then they've actually got data for Edinburgh that they can base decisions on."