Floods

[123everton]

Who is responsible for the flooding, I feel that the way our land is managed is wrong.
Farmers don't dig ditches anymore, the drains aren't cleaned out reguarly or anywhere near enough and the rivers aren't dredged either.
If it wasn't for the disruption, disfunction and disconnection of privatisation the coordinated response could have been kept in place that preceded it.
Agree or disagree?

[LoftyLottie]

For those of you who have paved your front gardens:

Dig them up and put down grass seed or shingle!!

[jake-the-peg]

Moorlands and marshes etc act as a sponge absorbing water and slowly releasing it into the river systems.

The more this land is "reclaimed" the less able it is to do this and the more flash floods you'll get.

Having said that the sort of rainfall they saw in Cumbria was exceptional (370mm in a day I think I heard - that's over a foot in old money) and that sort of rainfall would always have resulted in flash flooding.

I don't care how often you dig out the ditches that sort of rainfall is going to cause floods.

Slightly warmer global temperatures will result in more water vapour in the air and more heavy rainfall - but not enough to account for this on its own I wouldn't think.

[jno]

jake, I presume that all marshland does, in effect, is delay the release of the water it sponges up? In other words, the exceptional rainfall would be released anyway, only later? Or does it somehow even out the flow and reduce the amount of actual flooding?

[jake-the-peg]

Yes it does exactly that.

Imagine pouring a pint of beer onto a big sponge, It'll absorb it and slowly let it all run out.

Only this wasn't a pint of beer. This was half a barrel!

[Postdog]

Just a thought. In that other post concerning the babies, the hubby could build us all canal boats. We'd survive, and he'd earn enough not to scrounge off the state because he can't keep it in his pants!

[123everton]

What I'm suggesting is that there is no profit in river dredging, just cost, the cost of the boat, the cost of the crew, the cost of the wagon to take away the sludge and the cost of getting rid of the sludge, noone can see it so why bother?
The councils don't clean the drains as often as they used to, when was the last time you saw a gully cleaner in your street?
And (I am told) that farmers are disinclined to digging ditches to assist drainage.
To sum up, if better joined up management of the land existed all year round, this would not have happened (certainly not to the extent we've just seen) and a man may not have died.

[kinell]

we cant have this every year!

i am certainly going to concentrate on driving 5 miles less a week from now on......as requested recently

problem solved?

[123everton]

LOL, possibly, only in Britain, the government encourage you to buy a car then ask you not to use it.

[New Judge]

Yes, kinell, you reducing your driving habits by that amount, along with me changing my light bulbs for inefficient unsuitable ones that make some people ill will certainly do the trick.

Of course, this latest incident is nothing to do with the natural (albeit extreme) variations in the weather which the UK experiences from time to time. It is a direct result of you driving your five miles and me using my planet-destroying tungsten bulbs. And of course, we shall be told, we can expect much more of the same if we do not mend our ways.

Strangely this was not mentioned to the inhabitants of The Fens in 1947, or of Lynmouth in 1952, or of the East Coast in 1953, or of Llandovery in 1979 when they suffered similar devastating events. But, of course that was before “Global Warming” or “Climate Change” (which was born out of Global Warming when it was realised that temperatures were not actually increasing) had been invented.

[Avatar]

Thats the most amusing and entertaining thread Ive seen on here in many a while. I particularly like joggerJaynes solution of everyone living in a flat. lol.