Preparedness for when

moneyistooshorttomention

Mustn't forget the dafter/more irresponsible type builders that bung up drains by sending all sorts down them besides water.

Ditto to not forgetting the more irresponsible Councils that no longer dredge rivers that have traditionally been dredged - and obviously still need to be.

EDIT; Another "personal responsibility" thought (ie besides those front gardens) is the surprise I register at seeing large sodden gardens/plots of land and the land-owner very very rarely has planted anything like suitable trees on it to help deal with it. Think its weeping willow trees that I've read soak up huge amounts of water from the ground they are planted in?

That being the case - if I had a large enough garden/etc for one or more of them - I'd get planting them. I personally like weeping willow trees anyway - but I cant help thinking they would be one plant that would probably make rather a difference, on a personal level, to someone's sodden bit of ground.

RAS

Hear, hear GQ.

I grew up in the hills and the current situation is frightening. One "wood" I know consists of two scratty hawthorns in the middle of broken down stone walls with grass so thin you can see the limestone scree underneath. One day the whole dang lot will head down hill as there is very little to hold it there.

Deer numbers are a massive highs both in Scotland and south of the borders; although I think they are trying to get a hold on number in the deer management plans in Scotland. I think Mar Lodge are keeping stocking levels at half those when they took over.

I have seen what a mess deer can make of 20 year old fenced woodland if a tree falls and breaks the boundary; not pretty. And as for woolly maggots.

On the other hand, human and animal depopulation can also be a problem and there are areas where both could sensibly be increased on local areas. You might find this http://savory.global/institute interesting. Still controversial but at least some evidence it works on dry lands. He's made a few interesting comments on wet deserts as well. I think we can push production up in some areas and re-wood other areas.

Just the comment from a small holder who put a following electric fence behind his cattle as well as in front and found that the grass was long enough at the start for them to graze again when they got to the end. That meant a meadow could be used for hay instead.

And the young farmer who uses small rare breed sheep to top the grass instead of mowing. They cost "nothing" to feed or house, maintain the sward and save him an hour every field change.

GreyQueen

Paved gardens are a PITA in urban areas but I don't think they are relevant to this set of catastropic floods; it's rain belting down on bare hills and mountains and pouring into valleys faster than water courses can take it. Once you have run-off on that scale, there is going to be beggar all difference whether you pave or don't pave; 4 feet + of water in the streets isn't going to be mitigated by having beds of petunias instead of pavement in your garden.

If you dredge watercourses, the water moves faster. Commonsense and a good thing, surely? What it means is that it moves downstream faster, picking up stuff (trees, boats, bridges, dead cows) etc with it until its in full spate. Fast-moving water, bearing a cargo of debris, is one of the most destructive forces in nature and whole bridges get ripped out by it.

We are so used to seeing the landscape as our ancestors have made it that we don't understand that a river or stream in one, narrowish, clearly-defined channel is an unnatural thing. Water doesn't confine itself to a single channel naturally in most places unless the topography confines it such as in rocky areas; rivers braid in most places, forming multiple shallower channels rather than a single one.

When they flood, the water spreads over a wider area from the multiple channels. Rivers aren't naturally fixed, we fix them, they naturally aspire to wander, to expand and contract with the flow of water.

My hometown in southern England sits at the junction of two rivers. They're smallish rivers, combining to become a slightly bigger one. Their courses naturally have a 50-100m spread across flat land which has now got houses on - houses which are built below a small escapment which was the actual outer boundary of the meander in historic times.

More sensible eras allowed this area to flood in winter and grazed cattle on it in summer. Only modern people are stupid enough to build on it.

We've dredged because we want to bring marshy land under cultivation (or under housing), because we're offended by the landscape shifting around and changing its utility season to season and year to year. Because we don't want to have a disbenefit to ourselves (boggy fields) to keep strangers downstream from having several feet of water in their homes, because we made rivers into deeper channels to make them navigable.

I'm sitting in the centre of a mostly-medieval city. Our smallish, slowish river is essentially canalised for several miles inside the city limits with steep steel banks on both sides. It can flood upstream or downstream of the city onto open countryside but, if the river flow management fails, it comes up and over the steel and concrete banks and you can go boating in the streets.

No one lived in this part of the county in very ancient times because it was a marsh. It wants to be a marsh again, and only active management stops that happening. We need to have marshes, wetlands, boggy areas where water can be slow, and sit, and gradually seep away.

princesstippytoes

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

Mustn't forget the dafter/more irresponsible type builders that bung up drains by sending all sorts down them besides water.

Ditto to not forgetting the more irresponsible Councils that no longer dredge rivers that have traditionally been dredged - and obviously still need to be.

EDIT; Another "personal responsibility" thought (ie besides those front gardens) is the surprise I register at seeing large sodden gardens/plots of land and the land-owner very very rarely has planted anything like suitable trees on it to help deal with it. Think its weeping willow trees that I've read soak up huge amounts of water from the ground they are planted in?

That being the case - if I had a large enough garden/etc for one or more of them - I'd get planting them. I personally like weeping willow trees anyway - but I cant help thinking they would be one plant that would probably make rather a difference, on a personal level, to someone's sodden bit of ground.

A weeping willow is a HUGE tree. Not something that most people could grow in their garden without the roots causing damage to pipes and foundations of theirs and their neighbours' homes.

princesstippytoes

GreyQueen wrote: »

Paved gardens are a PITA in urban areas but I don't think they are relevant to this set of catastropic floods; it's rain belting down on bare hills and mountains and pouring into valleys faster than water courses can take it. Once you have run-off on that scale, there is going to be beggar all difference whether you pave or don't pave; 4 feet + of water in the streets isn't going to be mitigated by having beds of petunias instead of pavement in your garden.

If you dredge watercourses, the water moves faster. Commonsense and a good thing, surely? What it means is that it moves downstream faster, picking up stuff (trees, boats, bridges, dead cows) etc with it until its in full spate. Fast-moving water, bearing a cargo of debris, is one of the most destructive forces in nature and whole bridges get ripped out by it.

We are so used to seeing the landscape as our ancestors have made it that we don't understand that a river or stream in one, narrowish, clearly-defined channel is an unnatural thing. Water doesn't confine itself to a single channel naturally in most places unless the topography confines it such as in rocky areas; rivers braid in most places, forming multiple shallower channels rather than a single one.

When they flood, the water spreads over a wider area from the multiple channels. Rivers aren't naturally fixed, we fix them, they naturally aspire to wander, to expand and contract with the flow of water.

My hometown in southern England sits at the junction of two rivers. They're smallish rivers, combining to become a slightly bigger one. Their courses naturally have a 50-100m m spread across flat land which has now got houses on - houses which are built below a small escapment which was the actual outer boundary of the meander in historic times.

More sensible eras allowed this area to flood in winter and grazed cattle on it in summer. Only modern people are stupid enough to build on it.

We've dredged because we want to bring marshy land under cultivation (or under housing), because we're offended by the landscape shifting around and changing its utility season to season and year to year. Because we don't want to have a disbenefit to ourselves (boggy fields) to keep strangers downstream from having several feet of water in their homes, because we made rivers into deeper channels to make them navigable.

I'm sitting in the centre of a mostly-medieval city. Our smallish, slowish river is essentially canalised for several miles with inside the city limits steep steel banks on both sides. It can flood upstream or downstream of the city onto open countryside but, if the river flow management fails, it comes up and over the steel and concrete banks and you can go boating in the streets.

No one lived in this part of the county in very ancient times because it was a marsh. It wants to be a marsh again, and only active management stops that happening. We need to have marshes, wetlands, boggy areas where water can be slow, and sit, and gradually seep away.

This is absolutely right. These floods were caused by enormous and catastrophic amounts of rain. No amount of grassed front gardens would have prevented it.

RAS

GreyQueen wrote: »

Paved gardens are a PITA in urban areas but I don't think they are relevant to this set of catastropic floods; it's rain belting down on bare hills and mountains and pouring into valleys faster than water courses can take it. Once you have run-off on that scale, there is going to be beggar all difference whether you pave or don't pave; 4 feet + of water in the streets isn't going to be mitigated by having beds of petunias instead of pavement in your garden.

In upland areas and "lowland" I think we need to re-wood steep slopes below the tree line, manage rivers so that they can flood into surrounding flood plains (that's what they are there for after all) and concentrate activity in sensible locations.

Silt ain't a bad thing in small amounts as long as the ground is not under water too long , as in Somerset the other year. Ideally however you want that rock way up above the 1000 foot mark to stay there not get in the sea.

moneyistooshorttomention

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

EDIT; Another "personal responsibility" thought (ie besides those front gardens) is the surprise I register at seeing large sodden gardens/plots of land and the land-owner very very rarely has planted anything like suitable trees on it to help deal with it. Think its weeping willow trees that I've read soak up huge amounts of water from the ground they are planted in?

That being the case - if I had a large enough garden/etc for one or more of them - I'd get planting them. I personally like weeping willow trees anyway - but I cant help thinking they would be one plant that would probably make rather a difference, on a personal level, to someone's sodden bit of ground.

Clarification here being that when I say "large" I mean "large". What I am calling "large" might be called "huge" by some people. Its a matter of personal opinion:). Hope that clarifies it:)

Some of us define gardens as, for instance, 30' wide by 150' long as "standard". HTH.

The exact phrase I used was "large sodden gardens/PLOTS OF LAND". Remind me to be a solicitor in my next life (if I was prepared to have one that is.....).

GreyQueen

RAS wrote: »

In upland areas and "lowland" I think we need to re-wood steep slopes below the tree line, manage rivers so that they can flood into surrounding flood plains (that's what they are there for after all) and concentrate activity in sensible locations.

Silt ain't a bad thing in small amounts as long as the ground is not under water too long , as in Somerset the other year. Ideally however you want that rock way up above the 1000 foot mark to stay there not get in the sea.

Yeah, there's an awful lot of reforestation needed, and allowing the natural indigenous woodland to regenerate, not cloaking the land in mono-crop conifer plantations. There has been some exciting work done with simply fencing upland areas to keep sheep and deer out; the wildwoods come back quickly if given half a chance. Twenty years make a huge difference.

It's less photogenic than poor souls with several feet of water in their homes, but there has been at least one major landslip, too, and that's something which gives me a lot of concern. Where homes are on hillsides, or under them, the consequences of a major landslip could be a horrendous loss of life, the breaking of the infrastructure (roads, rail, bridges, buried utilities, you name it).

I'm reminded of Crete, where I have wandered around extensively; I came across some photographs taken there on a recent sort-out. Crete was, in ancient times, extensively wooded. Crete of the hundred cities, as it was known. If you know it now, you see the bare bones of the land, mostly devoid of topsoil up in the mountains, with tumbleweeds of what I call the wire-netting plant bowling around.

The cause isn't hard to find (listen for the goat bells). They're everywhere, even up in the trees browsing. The bare rocky slopes shed rainfall in torrents, as you can see by the gorges both great like Imbros and Samaria, and tiny, like the no-name dry streambeds which shoot huge amounts of water down onto the coastal plain.

You can still see some of the natural ecology, in places where goats can't get to easily, the trees are large and the understory verdant. I love Crete dearly, but it makes me sad to look at a landscape which has been degraded by humans and their goats for 2,000 + years.

MTSTM, willow is an extremely useful crop and many areas used to be under osier (willow) beds. Pre plastics, basketry was a key item in home, for transport packaging and for industry, and marginal areas of land, such as river valley bottoms were often put down to osier beds as a perfect cut-and-come again crop. I know where a few of them used to be, around here, as they were there in my Dad's lifetime, if not in mine.

There are lots of species of willow, and many of them will be too large for most people's gardens, and their water-seeking roots won't be very welcome in drains or sewers. Planting our smaller, native trees in our gardens such as hawthorn, blackthorn, rowan etc, might be more useful to the ecology than thinking willow; all trees slow raindrops on their descent, as well as drawing up groundwater and transpiring it into the air. Plus they provide food and habitat for our native insects, lichens and fauna.

moneyistooshorttomention

....and post-plastics willow etc could well "come into their own" again.

I must admit that, some time back, I was surprised to read that one of the side-effects of a Post Peak Oil society will be less (or no) plastics. I hadn't realised that one of the constituent parts of plastic basically boils down to oil. That was a "you learn summat new every day" moment when I realised that was one of the ingredients.

EDIT: You've also explained my reaction to Crete - when I went there one time on holiday years back. I have sometimes wondered why I reacted that way. I think I was having a very negative reaction to it because it was just coming over to me as so "barren". I was so shocked basically by all that "denuding" that I had even blanked out that I had had a holiday there.

GreyQueen

moneyistooshorttomention wrote: »

....and post-plastics willow etc could well "come into their own" again.

I must admit that, some time back, I was surprised to read that one of the side-effects of a Post Peak Oil society will be less (or no) plastics. I hadn't realised that one of the constituent parts of plastic basically boils down to oil. That was a "you learn summat new every day" moment when I realised that was one of the ingredients.

If you think about it, there is very little we use which isn't oil-derived. I'm sitting on a folding metal chair which was finished with an oil-based paint by the manufacturer and which has plastic feet. I'm using a computer which is a large amount of plastic and much smaller amounts of metals and glass (the monitor screen).

Most of my clothes have some element of oil in them; acrylics, polyesters etc. My little country table, probably late Victorian, is under a PVC cloth. I took my homemade bread roll to work in a plastic tupperware pot, and carried it up the road in a messenger bag made of polyester. At work, I sat on an office chair with plastic feet, plastic casters, oil-derived synthetic wadding under an oil-derived fabric. I worked another mostly-plastic computer and the headset I used was plastic and had plastic foam ear-cushions.

I ate some chocolates which were wrapped in plastics and used some teabags which had an element of plastic in their weave (that's why they're not 100% bio-degradable). This evening, I combed my hair with a plastic comb and washed it with a product in a plastic bottle, under a shower which is about 90% made of plastic with a polyester shower curtain to stop the water shooting all over the vinyl plastic tile floor.

I do have some plastic-free belongings, such as the made-by-me undyed yak wool rug under my feet atm, and my duck-down duvet. Oh, but there are even plastic buttons on my brushed cotton duvet, and my chest-of-drawers is plastic coated composite board........... it just doesn't end.

We are living in the Age of Oil.

ETA; I have the same reaction to the bare hills and mountains in the UK as MTSTM had to poor bare Crete. At some deep level, I wince at seeing them treeless and bare, or smothererd under the s*dding conifers - hateful things.