Flood defence 'difficult choices' faced, says agency chief
Critics say some rivers in Somerset should be dredged urgently There is "no bottomless purse" for flood defences and "difficult but sensible choices about where and what to protect" must be made, the head of the Environment Agency has said.
Chairman Lord Smith, writing in the Daily Telegraph, said "tricky questions" included "town or country, front rooms or farmland"?
The agency has been criticised for its response to the Somerset Levels floods.
Meanwhile, forecasters are warning of further gales and heavy rain to come.
'Extraordinary combination'The Environment Agency (EA) has been accused of failing to dredge rivers in order to protect the Somerset Levels, which have been badly hit by flooding in recent weeks.
Villages such as Muchelney have been cut off for almost a month and about 11,500 hectares (28,420 acres) of the Levels are flooded.
Dredging normally refers to increasing the depth of the river channel by removing silt that builds up over years.
Last week Lord Smith said dredging would "probably make a small difference", adding: "It's not the comprehensive answer some people have been claiming it is."
Writing in Monday's Telegraph, Lord Smith said the country had faced "an extraordinary combination of weather conditions over the past eight weeks".
"Prolonged periods of heavy rain and gale-force winds have affected almost every part of England," he said.
'No quick fixes'Lord Smith praised EA staff for "working the whole time to help communities at risk".
"They've been running pumping stations, erecting defences, issuing warnings and clearing blockages from rivers - often in the most challenging conditions," he said.
But he said there were "no quick fixes in the face of this kind of extreme rainfall".
He said that, while agricultural land was important, government rules placed the highest priority on lives and homes, adding: "Most people would agree that this is the right approach.
"But this involves tricky issues of policy and priority: town or country, front rooms or farmland?" he said.
"Flood defences cost money; and how much should the taxpayer be prepared to spend on different places, communities and livelihoods - in Somerset, Lincolnshire, Yorkshire, or East Anglia?"
He added: "More than a million homes have been defended, up and down the country, over the past couple of months - in the face of everything that nature could throw at us.
"I'm proud of what the Environment Agency and its staff have done.
"We now need to try to do even better, especially for Somerset."
Forces stand-byThe agency says it is now running pumps 24 hours a day to drain the huge amounts of water that have made it a miserable start to the year for people living on the Somerset Levels.
Members of all three branches of the armed forces are on stand-by to help villages in Somerset cut off by the floods.
An angler went missing at Tangle-Ha, north of St Cyrus, off the Aberdeenshire coast, in the early hours of Sunday The EA has two severe flood warnings in place, meaning there is danger to life, for the Severn estuary, near Gloucester.
A third covers the south Cornwall coast between Land's End and Plymouth.
More than 90 flood warnings and more than 230 flood alerts are also in place in England and Wales.
And the Scottish Environment Protection Agency says there are 14 flood alerts, meaning flooding is possible, in Scotland, while there are three flood warnings, meaning flooding is expected, in Tayside.
Rescue teams have been searching for a sea angler who was night fishing off the Aberdeenshire coast when he went missing in the early hours of Sunday.
The man was at Tangle-Ha, north of St Cyrus, when he disappeared from rocks in rough conditions.
The Environment Agency said the flood risk would continue over the next week.
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