mega storms uk next week

Rroff said:
The extra pumping seems to be offsetting the additional rainfall we've had - I'd imagine its going to be some weeks assuming it doesn't rain especially hard before it goes down proper though.



Seen some conspiracy theories going about, about how it was allowed to flood so as to force a cheap sell off of the land for fracking heh. Kind of falls apart a bit unless they somehow engineered the extreme rainfall we've been having also as even with complete neglect to drainage normal rainfall levels wouldn't have had that outcome.
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Also doesnt work because oil and gas companies don't buy land... They get exploration rights for the subsurface and will then lease the small pieces of land for the wellsites... Farmers already love them because the leases are much higher than the profit they would make on farming that area. :p

In fact flooding would have the opposite effect, the EA wouldn't allow O&G companies to put wellsites on floodplains...

Maybe it's actually the environmentalists flooding the land! *squinty conspiracy theorist eyes*
 
I bet there's loads of people hoping London goes under water to see how they like it. It would stop them moaning about the trains :)
 
Em3bbs said:
I used to drink there loads, my mate lives opposite!
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I loved it there, the beer garden in summer was great. I lived next door in the staff house, it was a ****hole, but i had patio doors right onto the thames, and could here the music from the clubs over the river on a night. We had some awesome parties though, walking to the 24 hr maccys at 4/5am, sat on the thames bank chatting away till the early hours.
 
Farmers can't shunt all the blame, we do a lot of work on flooding (Flood risk assessments, optioneering etc) and frequently one of the best solutions is attenuation (flood pond, wetland etc) which is designed to flood and thereby protect other areas upstream/downstream.

Quite often this lies on farmland and even if you spec up the design to be in the corner of the field that they don't use when the land agents get involved it turns out to be the best arable land in the county and ask a fortune for it.
 
leaskovski said:
Here is a hit and run for you...

http://www.theguardian.com/commenti...-floods-somerset-levels-david-cameron-farmers
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While in isolation theres truth to that - I've lived in this area long enough to have seen the changes and seen how its been progressively backing up with less and less rainfall required to have a bigger impact as the downstream maintenance has been done less and less.

Its not just dredging but other drainage maintenance - for too long they've only been doing superficial work with the result that the problem soon comes back - if they'd actually listened to people off the back of Nov 2012 the problems today would have been far less severe.

Windle said:
Farmers can't shunt all the blame, we do a lot of work on flooding (Flood risk assessments, optioneering etc) and frequently one of the best solutions is attenuation (flood pond, wetland etc) which is designed to flood and thereby protect other areas upstream/downstream.

Quite often this lies on farmland and even if you spec up the design to be in the corner of the field that they don't use when the land agents get involved it turns out to be the best arable land in the county and ask a fortune for it.
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Thats another thing I've noticed over the years here - precautions and prevention at a personal level have dropped off steeply. (EDIT: Slightly different to the point your making but still land owners haven't helped themselves).
 
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Windle said:
Farmers can't shunt all the blame, we do a lot of work on flooding (Flood risk assessments, optioneering etc) and frequently one of the best solutions is attenuation (flood pond, wetland etc) which is designed to flood and thereby protect other areas upstream/downstream.

Quite often this lies on farmland and even if you spec up the design to be in the corner of the field that they don't use when the land agents get involved it turns out to be the best arable land in the county and ask a fortune for it.
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So you don't just sit in fields all day going "aaaaarr"?
 
Rroff said:
While in isolation theres truth to that - I've lived in this area long enough to have seen the changes and seen how its been progressively backing up with less and less rainfall required to have a bigger impact as the downstream maintenance has been done less and less.

Its not just dredging but other drainage maintenance - for too long they've only been doing superficial work with the result that the problem soon comes back - if they'd actually listened to people off the back of Nov 2012 the problems today would have been far less severe.

Thats another thing I've noticed over the years here - precautions and prevention at a personal level have dropped off steeply.
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Drainage spend has long been neglected and not just by water companies/local authorities. Companies like Network Rail have had years of insignificant rainfall and therefore spend on drainage has fallen, the last few years flooding has increased massively and consequently spend required now is far higher.

The bottom line is you can't stop flooding, everything is designed to withstand a certain return period i.e. 1 in 5yr, 1 in 20yr flood. If the storm exceeds that level then flooding occurs. What you can do is control what floods and to what extent by being clever but it requires everyone to work together and that's what has been lacking.
 
DON'T KNOW HOW TRUE THIS IS BUT:

According to someone who I work with, they used to dredge the rivers fairy regularly and put the deposits on the river banks. The farmers would then take the deposits and use them on their fields in the area - natural fertiliser and everyone was happy

Then the EU changed the definition of the deposits to Environmental Waste thus meaning that the deposits couldn't be left around for anyone to take and use, they had to be removed and disposed of "responsibly". This obviously costs a lot of money and the dredging process is quite pricey anyway so the Environment Agency had to look at alternative flood prevention ways and the rivers remained un-dredged :(
 
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