These floods.

[Workingman]

Something has to be done: surely?

The present floods, and those of the past decade, are not simply down to too much rain. The UK has always suffered from storms of one degree or another and though we have had flooding in the past it has not been to the extent of recent events. Something else is going on.

Since its inception in 1996 when it took over from the National River Authority, which had taken over some functions from the (privatised) Regional Water Authorities, and HM Inspector of Pollution, the Environment Agency has been a disaster. It is not active, in the way the NRA or RWAs were, that has passed to local authorities. It is more a flood risk management operating authority disbursing funds to its chosen projects. Local authorities submit their projects and bid for funds. Most of the funds go to flood defences.

The upshot of all this messing about is that there is no coherent management of our rivers. Every local authority can do its own thing, or nothing. This has led to us being reactive to floods rather than taking steps to minimise them. We put up defences, and when they are overtopped we build them higher. A new look at river management has to take place and with a good dose of new (old) thinking thrown in.

[Aggers]

I agree with you, Frank.

Whether these recent floods are a result of global warming or not, something positive needs to be done.

For people to have to suffer to this degree time and time again in a civilised country is just not acceptable.

[TheOstrich]

I understand that one of the problems in Cumbria has been the de-forestation of the hills over time to accommodate the (more lucrative) farming of sheep. Plus the straightening out of water-courses, again to facilitate agriculture. And if nature had been left to its own devices, we wouldn't have seen such devastating flood torrents .....

[cromwell]

One problem is simple lack of maintenance. Rivers aren't dredged, drains and gullies aren't cleaned out regularly. Plus there seems to be a conflict - who is actually in charge?

When Somerset flooded a couple of years since you had the Environment Agency and the Department of the Environment sitting in opposite corners pointing the finger at each other!

Why the need for two authorities? It's a great idea for politicians - they can get someone in between them and the blame - but that's about it. Responsibility has to be firmly established before anything will be done. You have the two aforementioned, Natural England, the local councils, the water companies etc etc.

[Workingman]

I have just heard Hilary Benn, former Environment Secretary under Labour, banging on about flood defences and how much money he put in.

Get over yourself, man, throwing money on defences and getting the Armed Forces and Emergency Services to do the dirty work is not the answer.

When the rains first hit Cumbria I was reading a piece about a local authority in Somerset which was trying something different. It allowed the upper reaches of a river to act naturally so that when banks collapsed or logs blocked the river it was allowed to flood. That sounds wrong. But what it also did was clear out old culverts and drainage ditches to move the water to natural soakaways, often grazing land - it is easier to move animals from a field than it is to move people from their homes.

In the middle reaches land adjacent to the river was planted with deep rooted marginals and tall grasses to help sure up the banks. Then the estuary was dredged.

The cost of the scheme was £160,000, but it saved and estimated £30m in damage to properties and the economy.

[Kaz]

After the terrible flooding here in Gloucester in 2007 much was talked about the drains being blocked causing the water to back up and drain away as it should have, and how that couldn't be allowed in future....Eight years on, every time it rains heavily, which is pretty often, there are puddles over the drains! Lessons do not seem to have been learned at all! It's all about cost cutting and short-sightedness rules!

[Suff]

When you listen to climate scientists talking about storms and hurricanes, it is interesting in the extreme. They don't talk abut these storms or hurricanes as "weather" they talk about them as heat transport events. Essentially the hotter parts of the world are exporting heat, in the format of evaporated water, around the planet.

Where that water falls is not relevant to them, although they can estimate. Their estimate is the temperate parts of the world will gradually see more rain before desert marches north.

Whilst this is a wakeup call in terms of water management. This is also a wakeup call in terms of the sheer volume of water which will need to be managed. Our current systems are sufficient for "normal" 20th century weather, when managed properly. However, as we have seen, when successive storms roll over us week after week after week, our systems start to break down, the ground becomes saturated and can't cope with volume of water.

I have seen this time and time again over the decades. Also, because I am sensitive to all things climate, I also see the slow and insidious increase in the tempo and intensity of these "heat transfer" events. Give it a decade and people will come to accept pretty much anything as normal. Give it 5 decades and those old enough to know better are gone and, for those who grew up with it, this is normal. Humans adapt. This is the basic part of our make-up which has allowed us to become dominant.

So whilst we have to sort the system out and get it working again, we also have to anticipate what is going to come over the next few decades. Bridge founds are going to be eroded, houses close to water are going to lose their found and disappear. Soak ways are going to flood and stay flooded and the volume of water is going to keep rising.

The Victorians created massive structures and complicated infrastructures. Even more so the Romans than the Victorians. Some might wonder why we don't do that so much any more and have forgotten all those hard learned lessons.

The sad fact is that the Romans did pretty much everything by foot, boat and cart. The Victorians had trains and steam but everything from the railhead to the site of the disaster was by horse and cart. We, on the other hand, can saddle up the Army, bring in earth movers and we can suck out the drains and clean the overflows whilst the storm is ongoing. Those who came before us did not have that luxury. They had to estimate the problem and deal with it so that it was self managing in the crisis.

Our greatest works on that scale are the post 53 sea defences and the Thames Barrier. Yet decade after decade after decade I've watched the systems, around the country, fail to cope with disasters they were designed to avert. Now we are seeing the same places being hit over and over again instead of once every 20 or 30 years. Perhaps this is what it takes for people to wake up and smell the coffee.

The climate has changed, we changed it and the world is no longer as friendly to us as it was.

No doubt we will resolve it on a political scale. Once we have stepped in the crud we will attempt to fix the problem. Sadly, this time, they will be up to their necks in it and no way of creating the solutions to the problems as they will damage our manufacturing base at the same time as we are trying to use that base to fix the problem...

I do hope it will be slow enough that I don't see it. But I'm not confident...

[medsec222]

Radical steps need to be taken. Too much tinkering has been going on for far too long.

[cruiser2]

Our local council, in their wisdom now only have one gully emptying machine. They are saving money but not emptying the drains on a regular basis like they used to do.
Now it is closing the door after the horse has bolted instead of doing preventative maintenance.
Yet another example of short term savings but long term disasters

[Gal]

Saw this on FB today

http://www.theecologist.org/blogs_and_c ... avers.html

Food for thought.