Batten down those hives

[Hivemaker.]

levels they are flooding to are significantly higher than in past floods.

There have been lots in the past, here are just a couple....

The great flood 1607.

Floods resulted in the drowning of an estimated 2,000 or more people, with houses and villages swept away, an estimated 200 square miles (51,800 ha) of farmland inundated and livestock destroyed,[2] wrecking the local economy along the coasts of the Bristol Channel and Severn Estuary.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bristol_Channel_floods,_1607



The coasts of Devon and the Somerset Levels as far inland as Glastonbury Tor, 14 miles (23 km) from the coast, were also affected. The sea wall at Burnham-on-Sea gave way,[3] and the water flowed over the low lying levels and moors.

Lynmouth Flood 1952.

The root cause of the flood was heavy rainfall associated with a low-pressure area that had formed over the Atlantic Ocean some days earlier.[3] As the low passed the British Isles, it manifested as a weather front which caused exceptionally heavy rainfall,

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lynmouth_Flood

 

[Erichalfbee]

Well 12'+ of rain in 24 hours all that water has to go somewhere.

I am from Cumbria and talking to my mum at the weekend she described the rain as unbelievable from Friday through Saturday and that's from someone used to a bit of rain.

Yes it's been terrible.
Lots of roads are still closed.
My stepdaughter works near Kendal and lives in Walney.
It took her 19 hours to drive home on Saturday.

 

[Tom Bick]

Yes it's been terrible.
Lots of roads are still closed.
My stepdaughter works near Kendal and lives in Walney.
It took her 19 hours to drive home on Saturday.

I think there is only one crossing open over the Kent but could have improved by now. One of my sisters is a senior staff member of a residential home and up to last night been on shift for 36 hours, she could still be there, as other staff could not get to work. They are working through it with short sleep breaks as common sense kicked in.

It does sound bad and a few old friends have sent me some video clips of the river Lune at Devils Bridge and I have only seen it that high once before and the river was still rising.

 

[madasafish]

I have a friend who lives near Keswick. He moved house 3 years ago. Like me , he hates being flooded and so bought a house c200 meters above sealevel. (not at thw top of a hill !)

He is not flooded.. but no access to shops as all roads closed..

 

[dpearce4]

A local housing association is putting a planning application in to build 1200 houses on land next to our estate. The land is designated as level 4 flood plain and every and I mean every winter we have to drive down our roads on the estate and they are for months flooded to the depth of 1ft as they get water come up from below as well as above as we are 10ft below sea level.

The land is between 2 roads and they are called new salts farm and old salts farm. let me think what they produced oh yes they were salt pans for producing salt for London in the 17/18 and 19th century.

As JBM says its amazing what a brown envelope will get you these days.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

the problem is nut just the building on flood plais per se - but what goes with it - the loss of a natural 'pressure relief for flood water for one thing, so you can spend a fortune on flood defences, drainage, containment of rivers etc, but all that happens is that the water you have evicted from it's 'natural' home has to go elsewhere, so areas that haven't flooded for centuries thus didn't need defences all of a sudden end up drowned!
Rivers are meant to spread out into their flood plains when we get a load of rain - now they have all been enclosed into their tidy, narrow little corridor, so what happens? their levels rise higher and it becomes somebody else's problem.
As an example of how we've changed our environment over the years (although the problem doesn't seem to be here at the moment.) in Elizabethan times, the Thames was twice, if not three or four times as wide as it is now, so what happens? water back up further upstream and makes itself a new flood plain.

 

[pargyle]

There have been lots in the past, here are just a couple....

The great flood 1607.

Ha ha .. what I said was " rivers are flooding more than in living history and the levels they are flooding to are significantly higher than in past floods."

So I'm not sure the great flood of 1607 qualifies ... I'm not quite old enough to remember the Lynmouth Flood but that, like Boscastle (exactly 52 Years to the day - August 16th 2014) was the result of extraordinary weather circumstances in mid summer. A flash flood ...

The weather patterns that are causing the current (and fairly recent floods in the Somerset levels etc.) are the result of more prolonged periods of rainfall - breaking all records in some cases.

So .. we may be seeing climate change.

But JBM is also totally correct - the bigger problem is how we have changed and managed the environment in our lifetime. I was watching a programme on TV the other day which was highlighting soil erosion problems on farms and the inability of the soil to retain moisture after years of being simply fed with chemical fertiliser rather than being allowed to rest and having natural humous added. The water has to go somewhere ... and in many cases it's taking a lot of unwanted stuff with it ..

Water meadows no longer exist in most places - they have been artificially drained for cattle or crop production, in some cases they have been (foolishly) built on - these were the buffers against widespread flooding.

What we are seeing now is a combination of weather and man's influence on the environment ... the latter we can/could do something about .. the former we seem to be generally denying that we have had any influence over - or arguing about what can be done to reverse the effects of globally expanding human habitation.

A friend of mine built a house in Water Lane ... and last winter was wading around in 2 feet of water ... and moaning about the EA not having protected his home ... but, whilst I sympathise, the clue was in the road name ??

 

[Hivemaker.]

So .. we may be seeing climate change.

The climate is for ever changing, this land was covered in ice 10,000 years ago, and there was a period known as the mini ice age a few hundred years ago.

 

[pargyle]

The climate is for ever changing, this land was covered in ice 10,000 years ago.

OK Pete .. I'll play ..."We may be seeing ADVERSE climate change ..."

Did anyone see the photos of the Rhone Glacier in Switzerland on the internet the other week ?? I can't find the ones I was looking at but here's some similar ones ...

http://travelguide.all-about-switzerland.info/rhone-glacier-retreat-globalwarming.html

I'm too old now to worry about what effect it will all have on me .. but I have a 2 year old grandson and I do worry about the world I will leave behind for him.

 

[Hivemaker.]

OK Pete .. I'll play ..."We may be seeing ADVERSE climate change ..."

It has all been seen before by our ancestors throughout history.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Little_Ice_Age

and will continue to happen.

http://www.livescience.com/51597-maunder-minimum-mini-ice-age.html

...mind this lot cannot get the forecast right for an hour ahead.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/science/11733369/Earth-heading-for-mini-ice-age-within-15-years.html

 

[Erichalfbee]

you can spend a fortune on flood defences

Yes....I watched a piece on the news where flood defence walls were in place and water was gushing out through manholes on the "defended" side and up through peoples toilets.

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

Water meadows no longer exist in most places - they have been artificially drained for cattle or crop production, in some cases they have been (foolishly) built on - these were the buffers against widespread flooding.

Only a couple of years ag Swansea council wisely (for once) sacrificed a large 'brownfield' site just southoff the M4 on the banks of the river Tawe - the land had been built up and bunded to protect from flooding - but they took it all away and left it in the condition it was a couple of hundred years ago - if you look on the opposie side of the motorway it's all wetland and flood plain. Of course the Jacks were all up in arms - but it's amazing how much water holds back and hangs around in that area now instead of inundating more populated areas downstream.
we have fields/farms in our area (quite a few built on now) where the residents are now twitching about river banks bursting and their homes being flooded - the old people were'nt stupid - look at the names - ynys Gelli'r Fawnen (Peat grove farm island) ynys waunhwyad below me (Waunhwyad farm island, waunhwyad being loosely translated ad duck's wetland) ynys Glanyrafon (Glanyrafon means riverside - the name of the farm, all of the land actually lies between the old river bed and the new one) these strips of land or 'Ynysoedd' as they were known were called that for a reason - being formed from old oxbows, or were so wet in the winter they resembled islands

 

[REDWOOD]

I think this is the place that flooded before the wetland was created

 

[jenkinsbrynmair]

yup, that's it

 

[dpearce4]

the environment department are starting to deal with the issue down here.

http://www.theargus.co.uk/news/9065519.Residents_to_challenge_Cuckmere_Haven_plans/

http://www.brighton-hove.gov.uk/sit.../files/SP0042 AdurCFMP Main report 2008_0.pdf

http://www.seafordtowncouncil.gov.uk/news/Seahaven-Flood-Plan.aspx