what-the-authorities-wont-tell-you-about-the-floods/

[bassplayer]

If people didn't have so many babies we wouldn't need so many houses.

Get rid of the NHS and increase the mortality rate a bit so we save money and don't need so many houses.

 

Radical thinking needed I think.

☺

Yes, humans are the problem. More condoms I say...ah....but they clog up drains....

[valrene9600]

The problem is a lot of people don't have the knowledge to suggest ways of solving flooding. There are many like myself in this group, but many are intelligent enough to want to learn.

In the states they have used valleys to create lakes from rivers to supply water to homes. Shame we haven't the land mass of USA it might solve the problem.

[bigcol]

I've Sussed it, fill,the flood plains up with widebeams, and narrowboats linked together secure by mud weights and chains

Make cities of residential house boats.mnomengines allowed

Have flood plains filled with house boats, make towns of widebeams.

All the land used, and the housing crisis sorted.

 

Exciting!!!

 

Waterworld!!!!

Edited December 29, 2015 by bigcol

[GUMPY]

And simple small things

When friends wanted to put an extension up and they had to supply off road parking for two cars even though they only had one, they though that's ok we will have a gravel drive.. Oh no the council insisted on a hard drive concreate or Tarmac. The whole front garden is now concreate so Now the rain water now can't sink into the ground there it has to run off into the road and down the road.

 

How long ago was this and which local council? Solid surface drives have been unacceptable under planning for a number of years they all now have to be permeable.

[Murflynn]

Tosh. Look, If you get an excavator and 'dredge' a mile of river, all the shallows, gravel, sand and so on and then go and have a cup of tea by the time you get back the surface of the water will be at pretty much the same level as it was .Only difference is that the river will be slower and then it will deposit its sediment - result? couple of years and back to what it was. OK then, 'dredge' the next mile, and the next till you come to a bridge, then you undermine the bridge and it falls down. Take the Severn, lets speed it up , straighten out the meander in Shrewsbury, culvert the meanders at Buildwas, Result? a mighty tidal wave coming down to Ironbridge. Thanks. Lets 'dredge' it all the way to Gloucester then dig out a big hole in the sea for all the water. I was on the river Vecht in Holland last year, it was being heavily dredged, the reason being that it is completely canalised and is not 'self adjusting'. There may be bits of spot dredging that can help a bit but you only increase the capacity of a river by lowering the surface relative to the bank - impossible, or speeding it up - dangerous. Take a mile of canal, chuck in a million gallons, it overflows. dredge it, 10 feet deep, surface is still where it was, chuck in a million gallons, it overflows.

you are not wrong.

 

the Dee west of Chester also suffers from human intervention.

[Sabcat]

I've read various things about flood prevention over this holiday and the conclusion I've come to is that flood prevention is very complicated and if I'm going to understand it I'm going to have to read a lot more stuff than I can be bothered to read.

 

It does seem to me though that a lot more joined up thinking is required with regard to land use, development and river management. It's too complicated to be more specific, at least too complicated for me.

[DHutch]

And simple small things

When friends wanted to put an extension up and they had to supply off road parking for two cars even though they only had one, they though that's ok we will have a gravel drive.. Oh no the council insisted on a hard drive concreate or Tarmac. The whole front garden is now concreate so Now the rain water now can't sink into the ground there it has to run off into the road and down the road.

Now I know this is only small but times it by the number off extensions and new homes going up in towns. Where is the water supposed to go.

Where I live there is not much grass out the front off the houses, but luck enough for me it runs down the road into the docks, on bad rain days it's can run down the road quite fast.

Seams quite bizarre, and at odds with my understanding that councils require paved areas, drives etc, to either be permeable or have suitable soak-away drainage provision?

[John V]

I've read various things about flood prevention over this holiday and the conclusion I've come to is that flood prevention is very complicated and if I'm going to understand it I'm going to have to read a lot more stuff than I can be bothered to read.

 

It does seem to me though that a lot more joined up thinking is required with regard to land use, development and river management. It's too complicated to be more specific, at least too complicated for me.

 

I think you have just summed it up pretty well

[MartinC]

I've read various things about flood prevention over this holiday and the conclusion I've come to is that flood prevention is very complicated and if I'm going to understand it I'm going to have to read a lot more stuff than I can be bothered to read.

 

It does seem to me though that a lot more joined up thinking is required with regard to land use, development and river management. It's too complicated to be more specific, at least too complicated for me.

 

It is very complicated and the problem is that media "commentators" will cherrypick to suit their own prejudices. The EU "Best Practices" paper on flood prevention (which does not mention dredging!) does have a lot of very sensible suggestions, some of which are now gradually happening. As an example, in the insurance world, the creation of Flood Re as insurer of last resort due to be launched in April 2016, long overdue.

[bassplayer]

Actually it doesn't need to be so complicated. We have been conditioned to believe finances will solve everything. Nature is now reminding us that money isn't everything. Tell that to those who live in the Sandbanks (Poole)!

 

In times of crisis good people chip in with their valuble time and knowledge for little or no financial reward. For me that is the way forward.

 

The solution is to eliminate greed. (I know....silly idea...)

[magpie patrick]

The environmentalist George Monbiot seems to think that dredging just exacerbates the problem by channeling greater volumes of water directly downstream to flood lower areas rather than letting the water onto flood plains higher up.

 

 

I won't often resort to this, but in my view George Monbiot is an opinionated idiot who doesn't know what he's talking about, but knows how to make people who also know nothing about the subject listen to him. That doesn't just apply to flooding.

 

Yes, dredging can have the effect he describes, the trick is to keep conveyance capacity up (by dredging, widening, building levees or whatever) until the next storage area or the sea is reached.

 

The trouble is that that is expensive...

[George94]

I think you have somthing going there.

Let's add to it, allow less people into the country, when I walk into town, it's a bit like being on holiday no ones speaks much English.

If you move out off the country for more than 3 years you loose any right to any uk benifits. We've got aunties and uncles who live in Austraila and another in Cyprus they have lived there for at least 40 years but still get a uk pension.

 

Fine. Stop their pensions. They will then be forced to move back to the UK, putting further strain on our housing stock and health service.

 

Furthermore, as I understand it, pensioners resident abroad don't get increases in their pensions. So when they move back, the pension bill will rocket.

 

This is a really good idea.

Edited December 29, 2015 by George94

[Sea Dog]

 

This is a really good idea.

All true George, well put.

[tidal]

As others have responded in much the way I would have I won't belabour the point.

What is really needed is some joined up thinking that takes elements of all the suggestions made on here (and elsewhere) and applies them where they fit on individual river systems

Each river system has to be treated as a separate entity and thought of as a whole rather than in parts.
Mostly so what we do as we move down the streams and rivers doesn't adversely affect bits further down.

 

I usually share MP's opinion of Monbiot but I have posted his article on the t'other thread because for once he has talked a lot of sense.
So I'll post it here as well

Ignore the politics if you like (as I do) but do read it

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

[John Holden]

Don't blame all the loss of flood plains on developers, the farmers must take some blame as well.

Modern farming practices don't allow for flooding to feed grass, artificials do it much better so the farmer closes off sluices and drains to take river water out of the rivers

[matty40s]

Meanwhile.....

The head of the Environment Agency, Sir Philip Dilley, is expected back in the UK by Wednesday, cutting short the Christmas holiday that he was spending at his property in Barbados.

[John V]

Don't blame all the loss of flood plains on developers, the farmers must take some blame as well.

Modern farming practices don't allow for flooding to feed grass, artificials do it much better so the farmer closes off sluices and drains to take river water out of the rivers

 

A lot of farms have switched to animal free agriculture as a result of the collapse of dairy farming income. They have no further need of water meadows and such land receives no EU grant unless cultivated, if it is cultivated of course the last thing you want is for it to flood.

 

It's things like this that make the whole problem so complex and intractable

[mrsmelly]

If people didn't have so many babies we wouldn't need so many houses.

Get rid of the NHS and increase the mortality rate a bit so we save money and don't need so many houses.

 

Radical thinking needed I think.

☺

 

What if we closed our borders and then there would be at least a million less peeps a year coming in......................... ooops wrong thread...

 

Tim

[John Holden]

 

What if we closed our borders and then there would be at least a million less peeps a year coming in......................... ooops wrong thread...

 

Tim

 

And around a million less leaving!

[Cloudinspector]

Is this not the reason for the current floods?

 

http://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/tag/statistics/

[Murflynn]

Is this not the reason for the current floods?

 

http://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/tag/statistics/

don't be so boring.

[Loafer]

I've Sussed it, fill,the flood plains up with widebeams, and narrowboats linked together secure by mud weights and chains

Make cities of residential house boats.mnomengines allowed

Have flood plains filled with house boats, make towns of widebeams.

All the land used, and the housing crisis sorted.

 

Exciting!!!

 

Waterworld!!!!

 

Just watching that on telly!

[Dinz]

Grandpa told me never buy a house where the address was 'the meadows'

Always get somewhere that was higher than the neighbours, ie buy on a hill.

Simple olde worlde advice but seems about right.

May have over simplified this.

[cuthound]

Meanwhile.....[/size]

The head of the Environment Agency, Sir Philip Dilley, is expected back in the UK by Wednesday, cutting short the Christmas holiday that he was spending at his property in Barbados.[/size]

Why, has his holiday home flooded?

[Bee]

Is this not the reason for the current floods?

 

http://blog.metoffice.gov.uk/tag/statistics/

 

Ah, never thought of that. If it rains a lot it will probably lead to floods. Predicting where it will rain is hardly possible, Somerset, Thames, Cumbria, this year the Severn has been quite well behaved, the expensive flood barriers in Ironbridge have only been erected once (so far). We are always playing catch up and you cannot flood proof (or drought proof) the whole country. Solutions?, its all going to end up with climate change, world population, fossil fuels, blah blah recycle more and so on. Snag is that this is probably the only solution and to make it work is going to be tough. An acre and a pig anyone?