A Happy New Year to you.
Rather than catch up on the (now four!) outstanding blog entries I need to write, I am going to write a quick entry regarding flooding and housing... even if there are numerous blogs and articles out there that cover it better than I ever could!
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After one of the UK's worst periods of flooding since...well, the last time!... and the mildest December on record, a lot of fuss is being made (again) about the Environment Agency's response (or lack of) to the floods and what could have potentially been done - both before and after.
Yet again, people talk of inadequate defences, un-dredged rivers, saving water voles and subsequent insurance nightmares.
Also, the now standard post-flood debate rages on about how much money the (allegedly once cash-strapped) Majority Conservative Government should be dredging out (as it were) to help versus how much they have done (and then say they are truly doing all they can to help).
Well... I am not going to jump right down the EA's or Conservative's throats this time (or at least for this blog!) and say it is entirely their fault and that they could have done much better all round.
That may well be true (and I note that EA's Chairman, Sir Philip Dilley, has just resigned from his £100,000 a year 3-days-a-week post), but regardless, what I am going to briefly comment on here is just what we should be doing now... in general - for the the future - and why it shouldn't need to be a divisive, political 'thing'.
Before that though, let's establish some facts first. Here are three indisputable (albeit flippantly put) truths...
No. 1 - lots of rain falling in a short period makes rivers and streams rise in height.
No. 2 - if water levels rise higher than flood defences, houses previously protected behind the defences are then in danger.
No. 3 - if you make it easy for water to disperse quickly down hills, water flows more quickly and rises higher if there's plenty of water behind it.
I hope we're agreed? Good. So...
Can we stop the rain falling?
Well, possibly... if we can make it rain, we can likely stop it too... especially if there was a genuine and full #COP21 response to Global Warming. But... for the sake of argument (and to appease the H.A.R.M. conspiracy theorists and right-wing climate change deniers), let's say that we can't really avoid rain falling and a potential flooding scenario being repeated. At least in the short term.
Can we build flood defences higher?
Yes. Just like a Trump Wall, it could be done. But do we want towns and villages protected by walls that are considerably higher than the ground floors of the houses behind them? And how much would that truly cost to do it everywhere? And remember, many of the walls that were engulfed this time around were not old. They were new flood defences. Many weren't even breached or damaged, they were simply topped by waters exceeding the planned/expected (e.g. 100-year) flood prediction levels. I mean, how high should you build a defensive wall before it gets silly?
Can we intercept the water?
Yes we can. A lot of effort (and for relatively low cost) can be made to intercept water before it reaches places of habitation. In other words, from land higher up where the bulk of rain falls and thus flows from.
Indeed, new policy is already being implemented here... where farmland will now be deliberately flooded when waters rise so as to slow up the movement of flood water before it reaches towns and cities. Some farmers may already be kicking up a fuss about it, but they know that the masses (of voters) that live in towns and cities will get priority over protecting crops and sheep... in much the same way that, historically speaking, farms and the needs of farms tend to get prioritised over the needs of wildlife and the habitats they live in. And besides, the farmers have been told that they will be paid subsidies for doing this 'service'.
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But this is a response to flooding as it is happens of course,. Surely a wiser, cleverer course (as it were) would be to prevent the floods from happening at all? (Or, at least, reduce the floods to manageable levels?)
We've already agreed that we really can't stop the rain from falling and the conditions being 'right' for flooding... so to stop rain from turning urban areas into lakes, we must employ some basic land management techniques upriver... such as blocking up water courses so that water is slowed. Or reforesting land so that soils retain water more efficiently. Or bringing back old peatlands so that they become natural water reserves. Or reducing the numbers of sheep overgrazing on the hills in the first place. And so on and so forth!
Yes, yes, a lot of these things will have a negative impact on the people that work the land (i,e. farmers)... but if we can compensate them for having floodwater on their land when the floods occur, surely we can compensate them for reducing the sheep, reforesting the land and plugging up their once-drying-out bogs to help stop the floods from occurring in the first place? As with most "natural" disasters, I'd happily pay extra taxes to help prevent rather than simply cure.
Just Google some of these concepts... you'll get lots of returns, and lots of critique and balanced opinion too. I therefore do not need not explain any of them (badly) myself here. It's not just George Monbiot's idea you know... numerous people have been telling us about these solutions for decades!
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So, like most things in Environmental Management, the potential solutions have already been found and though they are nearly always relatively simple in design, the solutions on the ground are rarely straight forward to implement. They often involve multi-tiered strategy and a lot of hard work bringing conflicted parties and interests together.
However, just a few basic changes in approach can still reap an instant award... and, as I said at the beginning of this blog entry, it is not rocket science and I don't want to make this a party political thing.
Slowing and absorbing the water higher up reduces the floods lower down... and building houses away from flood plains on higher ground reduces the pressure and has a bonus in allowing excess water to go where it should, rather than into overland flow.
Although I note the current Prime Minister, David Cameron, is potentially a bit confused about what is a flood plain, if people feel that avoiding genuine flood plains is a pie in the sky luxury we can't afford considering just how many houses we undoubtedly need to build in the future, then I say take a leaf out of The Netherlands' book.
The Dutch have rather a good track record with knowing how to deal with floods(!). So if we don't mind borrowing their heavy duty pumps when we have water to shift, then surely we shouldn't also mind borrowing their ideas and techniques when it comes to innovative ways of building in 'watery' places and anticipating what's needed when the water levels get too high?
Let's not just agree that these are all good ideas though... let's actually start implementing them! If we can't stop building next to rivers... let's at least stop building sub-standard buildings that not only occasionally flood themselves but also help pass on the problem downstream because the water has no other place to go.
Best,
ZeeOx
