Floods

globalds

I don't post many threads on here.

I read this article today on flood management and some thoughts on current solutions and more importantly financial rewards and losses for anyone who decides to attempt other approaches to mitigating the effects of the weather on our urban areas.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/flooding-public-spending-britain-europe-policies-home

The article is fairly long and may not be everyone's cup of tea....
I was hoping some of you well informed folk might be able to tell me how much of this is fact ? ..Or just some sinister plan by some self interested group ?

The solution not only sounds simple but also pleasant .

If there is not enough economic or house price discussion for this thread then feel free to just discuss the subsidies going to grouse farms and how few people benefit from it.

Loughton_Monkey

Can't claim any special knowledge at all. Looks to me like a 'feasible' little gripe that may have some truth. Along with probably 99 other theories.

The point about water is that it has to go somewhere. A bit evaporates, but generally it goes into the land and rivers and follows the natural laws of gravity, perhaps modified by other factors such as porosity, slope, and simply finding the path of least resistence.

There is no science (that I know of) that would suggest that water can simply "disappear" by being soaked away under trees. It must go somewhere, although I can well understand that the soaking could delay things for a number of days, perhaps preventing some 'flash flooding'.

My general impression is that years ago, when canals and rivers were used for transport, cargo, fishing boat traffic etc., there was always a healthy 'dredging' industry that kept waterways free of silt. This no longer happens. Many of our natural soakaways (canals and rivers) are so silted up that they do not provide drainage any more.

Until early 18th century, a lot of Norflok and East Anglia was underwater, and the Dutch were largely responsible for helping us drain the fens.

We may need to call them back again under guarantee......

CLAPTON

interesting article

I didn't realise that the Guardian has eventually realised how destructive the EU policies are:

globalds

I am trying to think of those traditionally better nations.
Finland , Japan , Sweden ...The ones that always get dragged up for having better schooling . nurseries , happiness levels and cleaner water and air ..Did they start a tree planting regime 20 years ago that will be used over the next 10 years to beat us with ?

PasturesNew

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Many of our natural soakaways (canals and rivers) are so silted up that they do not provide drainage any more.

And, for many, dredging is banned. Some farmers tried to dredge their local streams in recent floods, to prevent flooding - and weren't allowed to do it.... some did it anyway

antrobus

globalds wrote: »

....I was hoping some of you well informed folk might be able to tell me how much of this is fact ? ..Or just some sinister plan by some self interested group? ...

I suspect it's probably true. Most of Britain's uplands were once just big forests, but we cut down all the trees to build the Royal Navy and fuel the early stages of the industrial revolution.

The trouble is that people in general now regard all those bare green hills scattered with a few sheep as part of the 'natural' landscape and think they should be 'preserved'.

LydiaJ

Loughton_Monkey wrote: »

Can't claim any special knowledge at all. Looks to me like a 'feasible' little gripe that may have some truth. Along with probably 99 other theories.

The point about water is that it has to go somewhere. A bit evaporates, but generally it goes into the land and rivers and follows the natural laws of gravity, perhaps modified by other factors such as porosity, slope, and simply finding the path of least resistence.

There is no science (that I know of) that would suggest that water can simply "disappear" by being soaked away under trees. It must go somewhere, although I can well understand that the soaking could delay things for a number of days, perhaps preventing some 'flash flooding'.

Slowing down the water's progress to the rivers does more than prevent some flash flooding. It also increases evaporation because there's longer for the evaporation to take place.

I think it might do even more than that. Trees grow, and to do that they suck up water from the soil as well as taking in carbon dioxide from the air.

I'm no botanist, though, so I've no idea how significant or otherwise those two effects would be in decreasing flooding. Might be loads, or hardly any, but definitely worth being looked into by people with the relevant expertise.

System

Apparently the floods are the gay's fault.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/18/uk-storms-divine-retirubtion-gay-marriage-ukip

It's 2014, I don't understand how these people still exist.

CLAPTON

Joeskeppi wrote: »

Apparently the floods are the gay's fault.
http://www.theguardian.com/society/2014/jan/18/uk-storms-divine-retirubtion-gay-marriage-ukip

It's 2014, I don't understand how these people still exist.

don't about half of the US / African etc population believe that?

laurel7172

A quick Google of "How much water does a tree need per day?" suggests that a mature oak tree can transpire (suck up and evaporate) 50 gallons of water per day or more.

I'm guessing that that's a summer figure, as the leaves are the "engine" of transpiration.

So, very roughly, five mature trees (in leaf) remove a cubic metre of water from the soil per day.

That's not an insignificant contribution to the capacity of the soil to absorb rainfall. The worst floods seem to happen after a warning that the soil is already waterlogged...

wotsthat

CLAPTON wrote: »

don't about half of the US / African etc population believe that?

"The scriptures make it abundantly clear that a Christian nation that abandons its faith and acts contrary to the Gospel (and in naked breach of a coronation oath) will be beset by natural disasters such as storms, disease, pestilence and war.

"I wrote to David Cameron in April 2012 to warn him that disasters would accompany the passage of his same-sex marriage bill.

"But he went ahead despite a 600,000-signature petition by concerned Christians and more than half of his own parliamentary party saying that he should not do so."

"It is his fault that large swaths of the nation have been afflicted by storms and floods.

"He has arrogantly acted against the Gospel that once made Britain 'great' and the lesson surely to be learned is that no man or men, however powerful, can mess with Almighty God with impunity and get away with it for everything a nation does is weighed on the scaled of divine approval or disapproval."

Not really sure that the first thought of those affected by floods in Henley on Thames would be to blame the gay marriage bill.

UKIP's standard response now seems to be to distance themselves from comments like this whilst defending the right of their representatives to make them.