Flood-prone homes may have to be sacrificed because they are too expensive to protect, according to the Environment Agency.
The head of the agency, Emma Howard Boyd, said some communities, including those on eroding coasts, would need to consider relocating to a “better place”.
“We are going to have to keep assessing whether we can, as a whole, as a country, afford to protect different parts of the landscape,” she said.
About 1.9m people live in areas of the UK at significant risk of river, coastal or surface water flooding and the number could double by the 2050s because of global warming, according to the Climate Change Committee.
The government is doubling spending on flood defences to £5.2bn over the next six years to better protect 336,000 properties from flooding and coastal erosion.
