Engineers have today called for the creation of a new national Water Security Task Force, as the Met Office confirmed that 2012 came within a few millimetres of being named the wettest year since records began.

The Met Office announced this morning that total annual average rainfall for the UK reached 1,330.7mm last year, just 6.6mm short of the record set in 2000.

In addition, the agency reported that England achieved its wettest year since records began, despite spending the first three months of the year in drought, and four of the top five wettest years on record have now occurred since 2000.

Significantly, the Met Office’s records show that long term averages over a 30 year period reveal an increase in average rainfall of around five per cent between 1961-1990 and 1981-2010, while preliminary evidence suggests we are getting slightly more rain in total that is falling in more intense bursts.

“The trend towards more extreme rainfall events is one we are seeing around the world, in countries such as India and China, and now potentially here in the UK,” said Professor Julia Slingo, chief scientist at the Met Office. “Much more research is needed to understand more about the causes and potential implications.

“It’s essential we look at how this may impact our rainfall patterns going forward over the next decade and beyond, so we can advise on the frequency of extreme weather in the future and the potential for more surface and river flooding.”

She also acknowledged that climate change may be playing a direct role in changing rainfall patterns, but advised that further research was needed into the nature of the link.

“Changes in sea surface temperatures due to natural cycles and reducing amounts of Arctic sea-ice could be influencing the increase in rainfall, but more research needs to be done before anyone can establish how big a role they play,” she said.

“Increasing global temperatures may be another factor. A warmer atmosphere can hold more moisture and we have seen an increase of about 0.7 °C in global temperatures since pre-industrial times. From basic physics, this would equate to about a four per cent increase in moisture in the atmosphere, which means there is a greater potential for heavy rain.”

Michael Norton, water expert at the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE), said the record levels of rainfall highlighted the urgent need to develop a more effective national water strategy that can simultaneously address the increased risks of flooding and drought.

“Extreme rainfall naturally diverts the focus away from drought; however there is actually no better time to be discussing how we can manage our water resources more effectively than when we have water in excess,” he said. “The management of drought and flooding are interdependent and require a coherent strategy, ideally led by a UK-wide Water Security Task Force. Without a strategy, we will continue to swing from flooding to drought and climate change will only exacerbate the situation.”

In particular, ICE is calling on the government and utilities to step up investment in the kind of new water storage technologies that can help to alleviate flood risks and ensure water availability during periods of drought.

“Developing new storage facilities across the country to harvest more rainfall must form part of [the UK’s] strategy – rainfall is becoming more varied in terms of time and place and we can no longer rely on large reservoirs in only a few locations,” he said. “New facilities come at a cost, however, and water companies should be incentivised and encouraged to collaborate in order to share the cost and also ensure they are developed for a range of uses such as flood control, agriculture and public water supply.”

Speaking to BusinessGreen, Ola Holmstrom, head of water at environmental consultancy WSP, said that while government needed to take a more joined-up approach to tackling flood risks and curbing developments on flood plains, businesses also had a responsibility to help reform the UK’s water infrastructure.

“We have got a Victorian water system that is based on trying to get rid of excess water as quickly as possible, but this approach is not sustainable,” he said. “We need to move to holding more water in the individual areas where it falls. We need more reservoirs and we need more smaller reservoirs that are distributed within urban areas.”

He also argued the corporate and industrial sectors, which together own a very high percentage of the UIK’s hard surface areas that accelerate rainfall run-off, had a responsibility to improve water management through the wider use of rainfall collection and grey water usage systems.

His comments were echoed by Norton, who called for the creation of an industry and government-backed taskforce to help promote the adoption of new water management technologies.

“There are many measures that can help us manage water more effectively from multipurpose reservoirs, storage ponds for agriculture, sustainable urban drainage systems, and household rainwater harvesting,” he said.

“But this requires a strategy bringing in all of the key players involved in water resource management and usage – from regulators, farmers and industry to water companies, the public and governments across the UK. To set this in motion, UK governments should create a UK Water Security Taskforce, providing leadership and ultimately delivering a strategy that is coherent, integrated and achieves long-term water security.”

The government has faced fierce criticism for cutting planned flood protection spending at a time when scientists agree flood risks are rising.

But a spokesman for Defra insisted spending on flood protection by government and the private sector had increased.

“More is being spent by government and our partners on flood risk management in this four-year spending period than any other,” he said. “We have introduced a new funding model that gives local people more choice over flood protection and allows more schemes to go ahead.

“The funding model has already secured an extra £72m of external funding on top of over £2bn that the government is investing in flood prevention through to 2015. We announced £120m in new funding to speed up the delivery of flood defences that could protect up to 60,000 homes and deliver up to £1bn of economic benefits. We now expect to exceed our goal to protect a further 145,000 homes and businesses by 2015.”