tag:theconversation.com,2011:/nz/topics/2014-uk-floods-8966/articles2014 UK floods – The Conversation2021-01-22T17:00:14Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/1538022021-01-22T17:00:14Z2021-01-22T17:00:14ZStorm Christoph: UK flood response improving, but lockdown confused the messaging<p>Overlapping disasters struck parts of England and Wales in January as <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55743246">Storm Christoph</a> battered communities which were already suffering from the effects of a prolonged period under lockdown. It was the first time in recent memory that the UK authorities were required to address two such huge events at the same time. </p>
<p>The storm <a href="https://news.sky.com/story/storm-christoph-thousands-of-manchester-homes-being-evacuated-amid-danger-to-life-flood-warnings-12194140">wreaked havoc</a>, threatening thousands of homes and leading to evacuations in some areas. The costs of yet another major storm will be felt by the affected communities for months to come.</p>
<p>The response to Storm Christoph has revealed the UK’s strengths and weaknesses. On the plus side, the authorities are now <a href="https://www.gov.uk/check-flood-risk">well versed</a> in handling major floods – learning from previous disasters in <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-somerset-26080597">Somerset</a> in 2014 and <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/video/2020/feb/15/storm-dennis-footage-shows-weather-chaos-hitting-the-uk-video">Storm Dennis</a> in 2020. </p>
<p>Extensive early warning, planning, procedures and flood mapping are now in place. Over 300 <a href="https://www.gov.uk/check-flood-risk">flood alerts</a> were issued by the Environment Agency in the three days leading up to the storm hitting. This gave communities due warning of the potential of severe flooding. In some instances, prior evacuation by citizens and communities was recommended and indeed <a href="https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-55743246">required</a>.</p>
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<p>So in this sense, crisis communication was good. For the most part, UK emergency planning has become astute at dealing with single hazard emergencies. Incidents that are restricted to geographical areas where local emergency flooding plans can be enacted with more ease.</p>
<h2>‘Conflicting advice’</h2>
<p>Yet despite a commitment to an “<a href="https://www.euro.who.int/en/health-topics/health-emergencies/from-disaster-preparedness-and-response/policy">all hazard approach</a>” – planning to meet differing types of shocks and threats – the floods have revealed that the UK is not, in practice, very successful in dealing with overlapping disasters. Multi-hazard threats require agile decision making. </p>
<p>In the case of Storm Christoph, initial indications suggest that there was a lack of joined-up crisis communication which linked flood advice – even evacuation guidance – with the requirements of also meeting COVID-19 lockdown restrictions.</p>
<p>People were, in many instances, not clearly informed about how they were supposed to evacuate their homes and meet the requirements of staying within COVID-19 bubbles. There was confusion over what people should do if they were forced to leave their homes. Could they stay with friends? Or would that put them in danger of COVID-19? As Didsbury West councillor Richard Kilpatrick <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/amp/uk-england-manchester-55747524">told the BBC</a>: </p>
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<p>You have a situation where, for the last year, people have been repeatedly told to stay at home for their safety suddenly getting this conflicting advice.</p>
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<p>Nor was it entirely clear how emergency responders would be able to provide flood-related support without making them further vulnerable to COVID-19 contagion. </p>
<p>Key advice was eventually forthcoming – at least in north-west England – where residents were informed that they were <a href="https://www.manchestereveningnews.co.uk/news/greater-manchester-news/storm-christoph-up-3000-properties-19664638">exempt from COVID-19 legislation</a> in this scenario and they should not hesitate to evacuate. But the clarity of this advice was far from uniform across the country and was issued at differing times.</p>
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<p>Effective crisis communication relies on a clear and timely framing of the challenge – in this case the overlapping disasters. It is also important to outline what the local capabilities and requirements are. And clear information about how the local population can respond to the crisis is crucial. This applies across the world, from the UK to <a href="https://theconversation.com/sierra-leone-faces-coronavirus-as-rainy-season-hits-local-disaster-planning-will-be-key-139604">Africa</a>.</p>
<p>My own <a href="http://eprints.bournemouth.ac.uk/28976/1/Blaming%20Active%20Volcanoes%20or%20Active%20Volcanic%20Blame%20Volcanic%20Crisis%20Communication%20and%20Blame%20Management%20in%20the%20Cameroon.pdf">research</a>, with colleagues at Bournemouth University, shows that poor framing (such as weak communication) can lead to a lack of compliance. This in turn leads to citizens blaming emergency managers for any failures.</p>
<p>People must have trust and confidence that they are both heeding critical flooding advice and staying compliant with pandemic restrictions. This cannot be ignored: flooding is here to stay and lockdowns may be something we all have to learn to live with for the <a href="https://theconversation.com/how-will-vaccines-affect-the-length-of-englands-lockdown-152714">foreseeable future</a>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/153802/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Lee Miles is the Professor of Crisis and Disaster Management at Bournemouth University Disaster Management Centre (BUDMC). He presently receives funding from the UK's Global Challenges Research Fund (GCRF) for research project work on international crisis and disaster management. </span></em></p>Clear messaging is crucial when dealing with multiple disasters.Lee Miles, Professor of Crisis & Disaster Management, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/417162015-05-13T05:17:05Z2015-05-13T05:17:05ZBeen flooded recently? These scientists want to hear from you<p>Coastal floods are a major global hazard. In 2008, Cyclone Nargis generated a five-metre storm surge along the coast of southern Myanmar. This swept seawater 50km inland, killing a staggering <a href="http://www.ifrc.org/en/news-and-media/news-stories/asia-pacific/myanmar/myanmar-cyclone-nargis-2008-facts-and-figures/">130,000 people</a>. In 2013, Typoon Haiyan swept across the central Philippines, killing <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/asia-pacific/2014/11/philippines-marks-typhoon-haiyan-anniversary-201411835744828320.html">8,000 people</a> and destroying a million homes, with much of the damage due to high sea levels.</p>
<p>The past decade witnessed two of the most costly natural disasters in US history: Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and Sandy in 2012. Coastal flooding from these two events resulted in 1,000 deaths and billions of dollars in damage. In the UK, an unusually severe sequence of coastal flooding caused enormous damage <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/2014-uk-floods">during winter 2013-14</a>. The world’s coastal population keeps growing and these floods are a reminder of the risks.</p>
<p>Coastal flooding is caused by combinations of high tides, storm surges and large waves. A storm surge is a big rise in sea level caused by strong winds pushing sea water towards the coast where it “piles up”; and by low pressure at the centre of storms which “pulls” the sea surface up by about a centimetre for every millibar. The worst coastal flooding often occurs when the timing of the peak storm surge coincides with high spring tide.</p>
<h2>The SurgeWatch flooding database</h2>
<p>The fact that coastal flooding is caused by high sea levels is obvious enough. But surprisingly, we currently do not record which extreme sea level rises spill over into extreme floods. </p>
<p>To improve our understanding of coastal flooding, and to assess just how unusual 2013-14 was, we have compiled a new database and described in <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1038/sdata.2015.21">Scientific Data</a>. Our work provides a systematic UK-wide record of coastal floods over the past hundred years. It currently contains data on 96 major floods, with information for each on the storm that generated it, the high-water level reached, and the severity of coastal flooding.</p>
<p>We have also developed a website called “<a href="http://www.surgewatch.org">SurgeWatch</a>”, to make the information easily accessible, and freely available to scientists, coastal engineers, and planners.</p>
<p>We’re aiming to expand the database and we want you to help. Do you have any photographs of coastal flooding from recent or past events which you are willing to share? Photos can be easily uploaded to <a href="http://www.surgewatch.org">our website</a>. We want to investigate these in order to improve understanding of exactly which areas were flooded and to what water depth.</p>
<h2>Preventing future flooding</h2>
<p>The database has allowed us to identify which historic storms resulted in the worst coastal flooding over the last 100 years, and we have mapped the specific paths of the storms responsible for these events.</p>
<p>What is particularly evident is that coastal floods can “cluster”. That is, you get seasons and even decades of calm with relative little happening, and other periods when floods occur in rapid succession. Winter 2013-14 was particularly unusual, featuring seven out of the 96 floods in the 100-year database and two of the top ten; no other season comes close.</p>
<p>Now that we know more accurately which seasons and decades had the largest number of coastal flooding events, we are examining properties (such as sea surface temperature) of the North Atlantic ocean the year before, to see if this provides clues as to how stormy the following season may be.</p>
<p>If there are links, and the ocean contributes to the clustering of storms in a period, then there is scope to develop seasonal forecasting that could supplement the short term forecasting currently provided by the UK Coastal Monitoring and Forecasting Service, which provides warnings of impending high sea levels, helping people to prepare for flooding emergencies.</p>
<h2>A long history of flooding in the UK</h2>
<p>The UK coastline has been subject to terrible floods throughout history and accurate forecasting would have been useful. In 1607, up to 2,000 people were drowned around the Bristol Channel, the greatest loss of life from a natural catastrophe in the UK during the past 500 years.</p>
<p>The worst natural disaster in modern times was the “Big Flood” of 1953. In south-east England, 307 people were killed and 24,000 people fled their homes, and almost 2,000 lives were also lost in the Netherlands and Belgium.</p>
<p>This event was the driving force behind the Thames Barrier which protects London from storm surges, and other flood defence schemes around the country. It also led to the establishment of the UK monitoring service. </p>
<p>The fact the 2013-14 damage was so limited compared to the tragedy of 1953 is thanks to significant government investment in coastal defences, flood forecasting and sea level monitoring. Our work helps create a direct link between the latter two.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/41716/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ivan Haigh has received funding from the Natural Environment Research Council and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Shari L Gallop does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A new database of UK coastal flooding will help prevent future disasters.Ivan Haigh, Lecturer in Coastal Oceanography, University of SouthamptonShari L Gallop, Research Fellow in coastal moprhodynamics, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/280832014-06-17T13:56:31Z2014-06-17T13:56:31ZMP’s focus on dredging and defences will not prevent floods<p>The record rainfall and persistent storms of winter 2013-14 caused <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/13/uk-floods-essential-guide">serious flooding</a> throughout the southwest of England, with breached defences, loss and damage to agricultural land, homes and businesses. A report by Deloitte as the waters receded in April put the cost at £1 billion pounds. Now a parliamentary select committee of MPs has <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/committees/committees-a-z/commons-select/environment-food-and-rural-affairs-committee/news/winter-floods-substantive/">published its report</a> with recommendations for the way flood defence and drainage is funded and managed – many long overdue.</p>
<p>The Environment, Food and Rural Affairs Select Committee argues that funds to maintain flood defences are inadequate, calling for a single fund that would allow flexibility between capital and revenue expenditure in any year for this vital area.</p>
<p>The committee also recommend Defra give the impact of flooding of agricultural land higher priority, awarding what some would see as greater and overdue recognition to the social and economic aspects of the rural farmland areas. While extra funding has come from the government to protect and recovery flooded farmland, this is mostly money reallocated from other programmes in fairly opaque ways. </p>
<p>There are also demands for clarification of the responsibilities for maintenance and dredging of channels shared by landowners, the local <a href="http://www.ada.org.uk/idbs.html">Internal Drainage Boards</a>, and the Environment Agency. Pilot schemes to give more responsibilities for channel maintenance to local landowners should be extended, with funding provided for channel maintenance by the drainage boards to be retained so that it can be handled locally. </p>
<p>The committee is unequivocal about the need to prevent any further losses to frontline staff. At the time of the floods, the Environment Agency was in the process of shedding many hundreds of staff due to government funding cuts. The floods caused a rapid review of this plan, with frontline flood management posts to be retained – at least for this financial year. The committee’s calls for “reassurances” from Defra are backed up by stating that, regardless of budget constraints “the avoidance of flood events that devastate communities should, as far as is possible, take priority over cost-cutting”.</p>
<h2>Dredging returns as a cure-all</h2>
<p>It is clear that the committee has particular sympathies with those rural communities affected by the floods, and sees channel dredging as a way of preventing the most devastating effects of flooding. The committee understands this is not a solution that will be useful everywhere, but they recommend that local land owners and drainage boards are allowed to keep channels clear by dredging. </p>
<p>But as part of its role, the Environment Agency is required to assess the benefits of capital investment and maintenance of flood defences, prioritising that which provides the greatest protection for the least money. As I have noted before, <a href="http://theconversation.com/total-flood-defence-is-a-myth-we-must-learn-to-live-with-the-water-22670">total flood defence is a myth</a>: floods happen and will continue to happen and areas at risk cannot be defended in all cases. And so some spending prioritisation is required. </p>
<p>This raises the issue as to how far society as a whole should be responsible for protecting those who choose to live or base their businesses in flood risk areas. It’s understood that the existence of flood defences tends to promote further development in areas already at risk. This is not only an urban phenomenon – farmers in the Somerset Levels lost livestock and winter crops sown in land flooded because the defences were overtopped, land it was only possible to use because of the defences. But dredging the channels there will perhaps cost more than the value of what was lost, even if for the people concerned the impact is just as devastating. This is one reason why there will always be a preference towards protecting more built-up areas, because the benefits of investment in flood defence will be greater. </p>
<p>Not only can we not repel every flood, it’s even been suggested recently that the national benefit from flood protection, in terms of savings due to damage avoided, <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/tran.12053/abstract">might have been overestimated</a>. But there have been benefits. Only 7,000 properties and businesses were affected by flooding last winter, while 1.3m were protected, compared to the 55,000 properties flooded during the 2007 floods. While the two events are not directly comparable, there were communities on some major rivers such as Bewdley on the River Severn that were flooded in 2007 but protected last winter due to investment in defences, permanent or otherwise. </p>
<h2>Unintended consequences</h2>
<p>On the other hand, some communities might have experienced flooding aggravated by flood defences elsewhere. The people in Wraysbury and Dachet on the River Thames, for example, <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2560311/The-wrath-Wraysbury-We-drowned-Gin-Jag-set-Windsor-Eton-dry.html">feel flooding there was made worse</a> last winter by the Jubilee River, designed to divert water away from Windsor, Eton and Maidenhead and built at a cost of £84m.</p>
<p>This is just one example of why flood risk management in a river basin needs to be integrated, not considered only on a local basis. Otherwise excluding water from some areas upstream will increase the risk of areas downstream. The same applies to dredging.</p>
<p>Dredging tidal rivers, including parts of the channels in the Somerset Levels, should be done with particular care. Greater channel capacity will, in that case, also allow the high tides to move further upstream and back up more of the water that is being expelled down the rivers. Where a discharge peak coincides with a extreme high tide, this could increase the risk of overtopping embankments. </p>
<p>Dredging will also have a significant impact on the river ecology. The Environment Agency has a responsibility under the 2003 <a href="http://www.legislation.gov.uk/uksi/2003/3242/contents/made">Water Environment Regulations</a> to improve all rivers towards a healthy ecological status – a requirement that may well conflict with dredging a channel.</p>
<p>The select committee’s report says nothing about such conflicting requirements, nor how they should affect investment by society as a whole. It has nothing to say about assessing cost-benefits of such investments. It has nothing to say about integrated management, preferring local management instead. And it says nothing about taking steps to prevent further development on flood plains, focusing only on improving and maintaining defences. It seems there are more lessons to be learned from the winter floods of 2013-2104 than the committee have recognised in this report.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/28083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Beven receives funding from an NERC Long Term Grant on Uncertainty in Environmental Modelling, the NERC PURE CREDIBLE consortium on uncertainties in natural hazards, the EPSRC Flood Risk Management Research Consortium, Defra and Environment Agency projects. He has visiting appointments at the Department of Earth Sciences, Geocentrum, Uppsala University, and the Centre for Analysis of Time Series, London School of Economics.</span></em></p>The record rainfall and persistent storms of winter 2013-14 caused serious flooding throughout the southwest of England, with breached defences, loss and damage to agricultural land, homes and businesses…Keith Beven, Professor of Hydrology, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/261412014-05-01T13:16:32Z2014-05-01T13:16:32ZMassive citizen-powered climate simulation links winter floods to global warming<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47560/original/vkbnqh53-1398947542.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C0%2C592%2C419&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Going under?</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3240095">Bob Embleton</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>Britain’s warm, wet winter brought floods and misery to many living across southern England, with large parts of Somerset lying underwater for months. When in January rainfall was double the expected average over wide areas, many people made cautious links between such extreme weather and global climate change. There were nay-sayers at the time but it now seems that there is evidence for those links.</p>
<p>Speaking at the European Geosciences Union <a href="http://www.egu2014.eu/">annual meeting</a> here in Vienna, Myles Allen, a professor of geosystem science at the University of Oxford, presented his take on the issue. At the gathering of more than 12,000 geoscientists, Allen reported an ambitious computer experiment that his team has undertaken over the last two months to test whether the winter floods could be attributed to climate change. And <a href="http://www.climateprediction.net/weatherathome/weatherhome-2014/results/">it seems that they can be linked</a>.</p>
<p>The floods of January 2014 certainly were <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/27/england-and-wales-hit-by-wettest-winter-in-nearly-250-years">extreme</a>. According to Oxford’s records of daily rainfall, they were unprecedented in 250 years. The records at the UK Met Office from the 20th century also show that this winter was, historically, uniquely bad.</p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47550/original/7grtrgsd-1398941015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47550/original/7grtrgsd-1398941015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/47550/original/7grtrgsd-1398941015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47550/original/7grtrgsd-1398941015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47550/original/7grtrgsd-1398941015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=431&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47550/original/7grtrgsd-1398941015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47550/original/7grtrgsd-1398941015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/47550/original/7grtrgsd-1398941015.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=542&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="caption">Flooded rivers wash huge amounts of sediment into estuaries around southern Britain in February.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">NEODAAS/University of Dundee</span></span>
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<p>The IPCC report does suggest that extreme weather events should be expected as the world warms but the prediction is couched in cautious terms and the risk is assessed as “medium” confidence. </p>
<p>At the <a href="http://www.eci.ox.ac.uk/">Environmental Change Institute</a> in Oxford, researchers Nathalie Schaller and Friederike Otto analysed results from almost 40,000 climate model calculations to test the impact of climate change on Britain’s winter rains. Their calculations modelled the weather across the country on a 50km grid. They compared the results of 12,842 simulations based on the current global sea surface temperatures, with 25,893 results computed on the assumption that global warming had never occurred – that fossil fuel burning had not raised CO<sub>2</sub> to today’s levels and ocean surfaces were cooler.</p>
<p>Such a huge number of calculations was needed to tease out the statistical differences between the two scenarios. It was only possible through the participation of thousands of members of the public in the work’s biggest ever climate modelling exercise: they offered up spare processing capacity on their home computers to run the calculations via the <a href="http://www.climateprediction.net/">Climate Prediction</a> citizen science climate modelling programme.</p>
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<span class="caption">The difference between observed winter (blue) and climate change-free simulated winter (green) shows increased seasonal rainfall and greater likelihood of extreme rainfall.</span>
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<p>The results showed a subtle bias towards more extreme weather in today’s warming world. Events that would have been expected once in 100 years before global warming can now be anticipated to occur once in 80 years. In essence, the probability of extreme winter floods appears to have increased by 25% on pre-industrial levels.</p>
<p>Allen pointed out that this is the first quantitative evaluation of the influence of global warming on Britain’s 2014 floods. <a href="http://www.climate.unibe.ch/%7Estocker/">Thomas Stocker</a>, a professor of climate and environmental physics at the University of Bern and chairman of the IPCC working group charged with assessing the physical origins of climate change, said that the Oxford group’s results had “shown movement in one direction only – toward greater risk”.</p>
<p>Although the results from the models cannot yet give definite measures of the probability of a flood, they do provide an insight into how those risks have changed and continue to change – information that is of great interest to insurance underwriters, among others.</p>
<p>Otto said: “Past greenhouse gas emission and other forms of pollution have loaded the weather dice”, adding that she and others were still working on investigating the implications of the results, for river flows, flooding and ultimately the threat to property and lives.</p>
<p>Some will, no doubt, question the result on the basis that it is “simply” a statistical test. The results from the two modelling scenarios are, at first sight, very similar. But the fact remains that they are distinct, showing that rising global ocean surface temperatures directly influence UK winter rainfall. </p>
<p>The results affirm the strong and growing scientific consensus developing from the understanding of the physical origins and consequences of climate change, as outlined in the IPCC’s Fifth Assessment Working Group 1 report last <a href="http://www.climatechange2013.org/">September</a>. Those that choose to ignore them, or contradict them, will (I predict) still be directly affected by them. And we will be hit where it hurts most – in our wallets. How likely is it that the insurance industry will ignore such results?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/26141/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Simon Redfern does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Britain’s warm, wet winter brought floods and misery to many living across southern England, with large parts of Somerset lying underwater for months. When in January rainfall was double the expected average…Simon Redfern, Professor in Earth Sciences, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/240902014-03-10T06:00:52Z2014-03-10T06:00:52ZThe moral dilemma of choosing what to save when it floods<p>This winter’s floods were amongst the most severe in living memory, with swathes of the country submerged. The loss of life has been much lower than for many disasters around the world, but many land owners have suffered substantial damage to their homes and property. Government policy is often unable to save or even help everyone affected and so difficult decisions have to be made over who to save.</p>
<p>When <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/environment/10613627/Difficult-choices-as-the-flood-waters-rise.html">explaining the allocation of resources</a> for land protection, the chair of the Environment Agency Lord Smith presented the choices facing the government as a stark dichotomy. He stated that we were confronted with a “difficult choice”, which “involves tricky issues of policy and priority: town or country, front rooms or farmland?” He went on:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>There’s no bottomless purse, and we need to make difficult but sensible choices about where and what we try to protect.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Presented in this way, the government appear to face a classic moral dilemma. One thought experiment, “<a href="http://www.nullapoena.de/stud/explorers.html">The Speluncian Explorers</a>”, describes a group of explorers trapped in a cave who have to choose between the consumption of one of their party, or the certain starvation of them all. We are fortunate that few natural disasters are likely to present us with such an unpalatable choice, but as floodwater flows towards a populated area, are we justified in diverting it to farmland or less heavily settled villages?</p>
<h2>Winners and losers</h2>
<p>If we accept that it is the <a href="http://oregonstate.edu/instruct/phl302/texts/hobbes/leviathan-contents.html">role of the government to protect property rights</a>, we must examine why some rights are protected at the expense of others. National infrastructure developments such as HS2, motorways and the national grid have all yielded winners and losers. Many benefit, but others have their property rights removed as a matter of political expediency. From a property perspective, planning and environmental laws are all statutes of compromise which attempt to balance competing interests.</p>
<p>When flood defences are built, policymakers must decide which land should be prioritised. Much has been made of the government’s <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/20101106170653/http:/www.defra.gov.uk/environment/flooding/documents/policy/guidance/erosion-manage.pdf">cost-benefit analysis</a> of flood protection and the shortfall after Environment Agency budget cuts. This analysis included a number of factors and prioritised the protection of the homes of the less well-off and elderly – presumably to ensure that the cost of repair and disruption fell on the broadest shoulders.</p>
<h2>Determining value</h2>
<p>Newspapers <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/10/flooding-costs-one-billion-pounds-insurance-expert-warns-rising-premiums">frequently report on flood damage running well into the millions of pounds</a>, but financial calculations alone are a poor indicator of the real value of property, either to the individual or to society as a whole. Economic value is often <a href="http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/IPCoop/82radi.html">bested by sentimental attachment</a>, and certain types of property, including land, can be <a href="http://www.jstor.org/stable/2708759">part of a person’s identity</a>. With farmland, it is possible that the land could have been in a family for generations – loss of it may feel like a severe amputation.</p>
<p>The choice becomes even more complicated when governments have to consider sentimental attachment to property on a regional or national scale, as no valuation of public land can be entirely divorced from its value to society as a whole. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/england-forest-sell-off">The furore that ensued</a> after the government published plans to sell Forestry Commission land demonstrates that the less tangible values associated with public land should be a significant factor in the creation of public policy.</p>
<p>Rural land can be valued according to its agricultural productivity, but even the <a href="http://www.savills.co.uk/research_articles/141557/144127-0">market value</a> of land is governed by a number of disparate factors. This land can also be used for other purposes, including the many parks and footpaths that are enjoyed by walkers and other visitors.</p>
<p>Multiplier effects have been used to value amenity trees in cities such as London. Is a tree that is visited and admired by many thousands of people every day of greater value than one which is lost amongst a forest of its peers? <a href="http://www.forestry.gov.uk/pdf/SERG_Street_tree_valuation_systems.pdf/$FILE/SERG_Street_tree_valuation_systems.pdf">The forestry commission believes that it is</a>. Applying this rule places a higher value on more populous areas and on more visited attractions, but taken on its own does not measure the environmental value of land that is a habitat for rare flora and fauna.</p>
<h2>Difficult decisions</h2>
<p>If a government is forced to make a choice between property winners and losers, no attempt to balance property rights will satisfy every party because of the subjective nature of property values. The law can compensate injured parties, but there are some values attached to property that make this irreplaceable in financial terms.</p>
<p>Where land and resources are limited there is a long history of the prioritisation of land use. Although many people connect their identity to personal attachments to land, the foundation of rights in real property is one where the owners’ rights have never been absolute. This gives legislators significant power over a commodity that is of great financial and sentimental value. We can only hope that this power is exercised carefully and responsibly.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/24090/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Ben Mayfield does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>This winter’s floods were amongst the most severe in living memory, with swathes of the country submerged. The loss of life has been much lower than for many disasters around the world, but many land owners…Ben Mayfield, Lecturer in Law, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/237992014-02-28T12:26:42Z2014-02-28T12:26:42ZWhat use are apps when your web infrastructure is underwater?<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42688/original/wts9bs24-1393521227.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Even the tallest infrastructure creeks under flood pressure.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/3240054">Derek Harper</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/">CC BY-SA</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>According to <a href="http://stakeholders.ofcom.org.uk/binaries/research/cmr/cmr13/2013_UK_CMR.pdf">Ofcom</a>, 80% of adults in the UK had access to the internet in 2013 and each spent about 35 hours online each month. And half of all adults in the UK access the web using their mobile phones, spending an average of five hours online per month. </p>
<p>The average UK household has three internet enabled devices and more than 17% of homes are connected to the internet via superfast broadband services. For many people, the internet is the first port of call for virtually everything.</p>
<p>Businesses have responded in turn and now see having a website and online services as a top priority. And we are often urged to seek information online before attempting to contact customer support over the phone. Some might say we have become too reliant on the internet. More reliant than our infrastructure justifies.</p>
<p>This winter has seen unprecedented high winds and flooding resulting in widespread and in some cases, long-lasting power outages in the UK, particularly in the west of England. Whole villages have been inundated and families have been forced to evacuate their homes.</p>
<p>Time and time again, companies have advised their customers to go online to check their websites for the latest information. Some organisations have even created <a href="http://news.filehippo.com/2014/02/flood-hack-helps-uk-flood-victims/">apps</a> specifically designed to assist flood victims; others have established Facebook self-help groups. There’s a fundamental problem here.</p>
<p>There are two primary ways in which we gain access to the web, via a landline and using a mobile connection. A landline connects our homes to the local telephone exchange. For those customers with superfast broadband connections, the majority of these pass through a piece of street furniture called a primary connection point, recognisable as a green metal cabinet. That cabinet needs electrical power, as does the local telephone exchange.</p>
<p>Within our homes the landline connects to a wireless router and also, for a lot of homes, a cordless telephone, both of which need electrical power to work. So, when the lights go out, your router and cordless phones are useless.</p>
<p>Very few people have the means to power these devices without mains electricity. The local telephone exchange does have electrical backup which includes emergency diesel generators but the green street cabinets providing superfast broadband only have batteries that keep them going for about four hours.</p>
<p>Therefore the only thing that is going to work in your home is a traditional analogue telephone plugged directly into your landline. Have you still got one? If your laptop’s battery is charged and you kept an old modem and dial-up internet account then you could connect for a couple of hours but you’ll be back in the 1990s in terms of speed.</p>
<p>What about a mobile connection using a smart phone or broadband dongle? Surely these can get you online. That depends on how severe the power outage is and how good the local infrastructure is. Your mobile connection relies on establishing radio transmission with the nearest mobile base station. These can be identified by their aerial masts and are normally visible at the side of roads or on top of buildings. </p>
<p>They vary in size and many are well above the ground keeping them away from floods. However, while they all have battery back-up, generally these are only designed to cope with short duration power cuts. As we have witnessed this year, long duration power outages will result in the base stations shutting down. That is bad news for your mobile phone signal, which is likely to be lost.</p>
<p>Of course, street furniture and other key pieces of infrastructure could themselves be submerged under water or have been damaged, which will prolong any web outage. </p>
<p>Since Christmas 2013, BT’s infrastructure arm <a href="http://www.ispreview.co.uk/index.php/2014/01/uk-storm-damage-gives-bt-openreach-engineers-busy-start-2014.html">Openreach has published several MBORCs</a> (matters beyond our reasonable control) declarations. These in effect state that conditions are so extreme that the company is not able to restore service within normal expectations. Major disruption to the environment does inevitably stop the engineers themselves from physically getting to or gaining access to sites to carry out repairs. As is the case for so many other vital services, it is difficult to tell when the internet will be restored. It’s even harder for residents in Somerset to find this out.</p>
<p>Organisations that rely on the web as their primary means of delivering customer services need to become far more aware of the fragility of our infrastructure and crucially the dependency of the web on having a supply of electricity to make it work. At times of crisis, the customers in most need are often the ones with no access.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23799/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nigel Linge has received funding from the EPSRC, EU.</span></em></p>According to Ofcom, 80% of adults in the UK had access to the internet in 2013 and each spent about 35 hours online each month. And half of all adults in the UK access the web using their mobile phones…Nigel Linge, Professor, Computer Networking and Telecommunications, University of SalfordLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/236822014-02-26T05:57:53Z2014-02-26T05:57:53ZFarmers, small businesses and the full cost of the wettest winter<p>With towns in the south and southwest flooded out, the government has offered <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-politics-26277147">£5,000 payments</a> to help homeowners add flood protection to their homes, while small firms will enjoy a cut of <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-floods-10-million-support-scheme-for-flood-affected-businesses">a £10m fund</a> to help them back into business.</p>
<p>Farms are small businesses, but this – as farmers have said at the NFU conference – is a <a href="http://www.itv.com/news/story/2014-02-24/environment-agency-cannot-protect-all-people-and-properties-from-floods/">drop in the ocean</a>. There is no “standard” business model for a farm and, as with other businesses, the impact of flooding will vary depending on damage to for example stock (in this case, crops) and premises (in this case, land). Damage to stored crops, fodder stocks, buildings, and equipment will be among the other variables. The characteristics of the flooding itself are also important: how long is land flooded for? How long before it stops being waterlogged after flooding?</p>
<p>Many farm businesses are specialised and unique. The Somerset Levels, for example, is for the most part low-intensity grazing land for beef cattle rearing, dairy farming, and to some extent sheep farming. But there are also unique <a href="http://www.willowgrowers.co.uk/">businesses supplying willow</a> for such esoteric items as balloon baskets and coffins for green burials, or <a href="http://www.wildlifetrusts.org/species/teasel">teasels</a> for the treatment of the green baize on billiard tables.</p>
<p>These niche businesses can be the only firms offering certain products, supply chain links so vital that they are often tied in strongly to contracts. This means that if they can’t supply what’s needed, on time, they have to go to great lengths and cost to find substitute supplies, or breach their contracts. The summer floods in 2007 cost <a href="http://www.esrc.ac.uk/my-esrc/grants/RES-227-25-0017/outputs/read/935008d0-83da-453d-be4b-f76ea779dT11b">between £30,000-£90,000 per farm</a>, losses that partly arose from just this failure to fulfil contracts.</p>
<p>The spring 2012 floods in Somerset affected more than 5,000 hectares, with water standing to a depth of 2.5m in places. The pumping stations <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jfr3.12041/abstract">were unable to remove all this water</a> fast enough into the tidal River Tone, and early indications from the floods that began in late 2013 suggest a similar picture of around 700 farmers affected over an area of up to 12,000 hectares, with water standing up to 2.4m deep in places.</p>
<p>But eventually the waters recede, and once they have the farmers will count the cost of flooding. These costs include the emergency evacuation of livestock, the loss of spring grazing lands, and loss of later pasture land which will mean less or no silage or hay fodder for the following winter, the extra cost of buying in feedstuffs to replace flood-damaged stores or flooded grazing lands, and damage to field drains, fences, gates, and other equipment. Health problems for livestock, especially <a href="http://www.defra.gov.uk/ahvla-en/disease-control/non-notifiable/liver-fluke/">liver fluke</a> in sheep, are also a concern.</p>
<p>The costs of cleaning up open land can easily be £15/hectare, but this is dwarfed by the overall loss to farmers of <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/jfr3.12041/abstract">up to £1,400/hectare</a> once the loss of cattle sales, contracting income, the costs of reseeding damaged pasture and so on are all taken into account. Few if any of these costs will have been covered by insurance in most cases, nor are there any other public funds on which farmers can draw. The farming community has however rallied round, with relief supplies of fodder being dispatched to the west country from other parts of the country.</p>
<p>Some of the “costs” are not so obvious. For example, an increase of mastitis in dairy cows or lameness in livestock due to the wet conditions all cost the farmer more. And, anecdotally, these figures may understate the long-term impact, especially in those areas where soil has been contaminated or requires substantial remediation. Some farmers for example had to apply large quantities of lime to rebalance the pH level of soils after the 2012 floods.</p>
<p>These last months of flooding this year suggest that, even with increased dredging, flooding will be a continually recurring phenomenon in the Somerset Levels and Moors. The land around the River Parrett lies barely 4.6m above mean sea level, those around the nearby River Tone are at their lowest 7.4m, and yet peak tides hit a high of 8m above sea level – there is nowhere else for the water to go at high tide but onto the land.</p>
<p>So it is inevitable that flooding will occur from time to time. Work on the <a href="http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/about_us/whatwedo/partnership/casestudies/somersetlevels.aspx">Somerset Levels Water Level Management Plan</a> goes back to 2003, and this reflects one of the problems. Water Level Management Plans look to timescales of 100 years or more. They allow for farmland to be flooded in order to protect more valuable interests and property. But while others benefit because farmland is sacrificed in this way, there is little or no balancing provision for the costs which farmers must therefore inevitably bear. </p>
<p>A proper strategic view is needed, supported by properly focused, long-term measures which recognise the hydrological reality of areas like the Levels, and truly reflect all the costs and benefits associated with sacrificing farmland to the waters. Who will pay, and how, for the floodwaters and all that comes with them that are imposed on farmers and farms such as those in Somerset?</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23682/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Charles Cowap is a chartered surveyor and agricultural valuer, and a Principal Lecturer in land management at Harper Adams University in Shropshire. He is also an honorary fellow of the University of Exeter. This article draws on some preliminary work he has been undertaking in connection with the longer-term economic impact of flooding on agriculture.</span></em></p>With towns in the south and southwest flooded out, the government has offered £5,000 payments to help homeowners add flood protection to their homes, while small firms will enjoy a cut of a £10m fund to…Charles Cowap, Principal Lecturer, Harper Adams UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/236692014-02-25T16:00:30Z2014-02-25T16:00:30ZFloods leave farms underwater, and farmers under pressure<p>I’ve been talking to farmers all this week, many of whom have had their fields underwater for a month or more. It is quite soul destroying to see the natural assets of your business, on which you depend on for your livelihood and to support the rich wildlife of the countryside, being slowly suffocated under a blanket of filthy water.</p>
<p>One farmer said that, where the floods had receded, his fields are filled with all kinds of rubbish and debris. His first task is to decide how to remove all this, before he can begin to examine the effects the floodwaters have had on his crops and on the soil. I’d imagine he already knows what the answer will be with any crops planted last autumn: they will not have survived. But what condition the soil is in, and any long-lasting impact on it will take longer to fully understand.</p>
<p>Farmers’ ability to produce food rests upon a plentiful, but not excessive, supply of sunlight and rainfall. Indeed, almost all of nature depends on these resources in equal measure. And while livestock can be moved to higher ground where possible, wildlife may not be so lucky. Populations of badgers, <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-weather-floods-could-have-devastating-environmental-impact-9132299.html">hedgehogs, voles and other small mammals</a>, not to mention beetles and other insects, will have been devastated in those areas worst hit by the floods. And fewer insects means less food for birds and other creatures higher up the food chain.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-25931847">Changing and adapting farming systems</a> to accommodate water now may help rescue crops from flooding in the future, but farmers will have to bear the costs now, of losing land to non-cash crops, or sourcing forage for their animals to replace their own that’s been lost. This will cut into profitability and cash flow – hard after several seasons where profit margins have been low or even negative. Bad weather and lack of sunlight <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-22050874">throughout the summer of 2012</a> was followed by poor weather during planting season at the end of 2013 as crops were getting established. Farmers may survive a buffeting from the vagaries of nature for a time, but will need to rely on sympathetic bank managers and landlords in the months to come.</p>
<p>In the long term, we need to identify a way we can address inconsistent rainfall, lack of sunlight at key times in the growing cycle, and the effects of heavy rains and being submerged on soil quality. One way would be to improve food security through resilient supply chains, so that any crop losses can be made up from other sources, but it also needs to be considered that the land serves many purposes, both in terms of financial stability for those that live and work on it, and the social benefits to others too, and how these can be best supported.</p>
<p>The impact of extreme weather on wildlife is of great concern, especially when it comes to soil quality and providing habitat for insects, as these are vital for pollinating crops. Some farms have been involved in the the Government’s <a href="http://www.naturalengland.org.uk/ourwork/farming/funding/es/hls/default.aspx">higher level stewardship</a> to support increasing natural and social benefits for the nation and communities. However the funding of this mechanism alone cannot achieve what’s required.</p>
<p>We need to combine new social policy with structural “hard” solutions, such as water <a href="http://cfpub.epa.gov/npdes/stormwater/menuofbmps/index.cfm?action=factsheet_results&view=specific&bmp=68">retention and detention areas</a> There is no quick fix, which makes it difficult for all those involved. Many may have to sacrifice short term objectives for long term benefits. </p>
<p>What is sure is that if farms cannot make a profit then they cannot care for and manage the countryside’s natural capital, nor sustain our food supply. So it’s time that we considered this issue collectively, not in a polarised town vs country fashion, nor as farmer vs environmentalist.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23669/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Louise Manning does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>I’ve been talking to farmers all this week, many of whom have had their fields underwater for a month or more. It is quite soul destroying to see the natural assets of your business, on which you depend…Louise Manning, Senior Lecturer in Food Production Management, Royal Agricultural UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/235362014-02-25T05:59:13Z2014-02-25T05:59:13ZLiving with water: four buildings that will withstand flooding<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42187/original/nwkhqms8-1392980946.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Not flooded, born this way.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/pgasston/3845731752/">Peter Gasston</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/">CC BY-NC-ND</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>We’ve been told to <a href="https://theconversation.com/get-used-to-flooding-climate-change-will-bring-more-of-it-23198">get used to flooding</a>. Whether or not the latest floods were caused by climate change, this winter has reminded us that floods are and will continue to be a fact of human existence, especially if we <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-inconvenient-truth-houses-built-on-floodplains-could-flood-22605">continue to build on flood plains</a> and due to increased extreme weather events as predicted in a changing climate.</p>
<p>The good news is that living with flooding is already a way of life for much of the world. The Netherlands for example has more than half its landmass below sea-level and building techniques there can teach us how to adapt where we live and to work with water, rather than against it.</p>
<p>We can do this with a combination of improving the way we <a href="https://theconversation.com/upstream-must-work-with-downstream-to-fix-flooding-23330">manage the water system</a>, the amount that we build and the way that we build. We should build less, not more, in flood risk areas and increase the amount of space we give to water storage. This means more green spaces, storing water and permeable surfaces. </p>
<p>And, if we do build in flood risk areas, there are many designs for flood resilient buildings we can use. Here’s an outline of how we can adapt existing buildings and build new ones differently to protect and minimise damage to property (and life) when flooding happens.</p>
<h2>Flood the basement, save the home</h2>
<p>Architects such as <a href="http://www.baca.uk.com/">Baca</a> specialise in flood risk designs. In the UK, especially on new developments in the Thames Estuary, we tend to favour “sacrificial ground floors”. This constitutes a building with a raised ground floor, where residential areas on the first floor. The basement – which can be used for storage or as a car park in times of no flooding – is there to contain water when it floods and protect the residential areas from water damage. </p>
<figure class="align-right ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42257/original/53dm28qk-1393182729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42257/original/53dm28qk-1393182729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42257/original/53dm28qk-1393182729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42257/original/53dm28qk-1393182729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=476&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42257/original/53dm28qk-1393182729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42257/original/53dm28qk-1393182729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42257/original/53dm28qk-1393182729.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=598&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption"></span>
<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/bag.k">Sofie Pelsmakers</a></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>This design is suitable in areas that have a low to medium probability of flooding and has the drawback of having to sacrifice the basement when it floods. The space has limited uses such as for storage and the contents will have to be moved above flood risk level in the event of flooding.</p>
<h2>Stilt life</h2>
<p>Building on stilts is suitable in high flood probability zones and is <a href="http://inhabitat.com/cozy-daylit-home-in-the-netherlands-uses-locally-sourced-wood-to-keep-dry/">more common in the Netherlands</a>. This structure is useful in areas liable to a lot of flooding and particularly coastal areas. Added protection is still needed, however, from breakwaters to prevent debris damaging the stilts.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42258/original/ydnzh65y-1393182905.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42258/original/ydnzh65y-1393182905.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42258/original/ydnzh65y-1393182905.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42258/original/ydnzh65y-1393182905.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42258/original/ydnzh65y-1393182905.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=546&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42258/original/ydnzh65y-1393182905.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42258/original/ydnzh65y-1393182905.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42258/original/ydnzh65y-1393182905.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=686&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/bag.k">Sofie Pelsmakers</a></span>
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<p>Urban environments are less suitable to stilt structures. The area underneath the stilts is hard to manage and use effectively. Nothing can really grow under them so it’s difficult to make the area into a public space. A lack of surveillance and ownership of the area can cause security issues in an urban environment. Erecting buildings on stilts also creates the need for ramps, lifts and aerial walkways – all of which are tricky in urban areas. </p>
<h2>Float on</h2>
<p>Floating buildings are another option, but may not be suitable for much of the UK, as they are built directly onto water. They use special polystyrene slabs that are covered in concrete for the base of the structure. As the water level rises, the ground floor moves with it, up to around five and a half metres. This method is tested in the Netherlands – they even <a href="http://www.urbangreenbluegrids.com/projects/floating-greenhouse-naaldwijk-the-netherlands/">built a floating greenhouse</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-right zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42259/original/qdmvfxnh-1393182952.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42259/original/qdmvfxnh-1393182952.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42259/original/qdmvfxnh-1393182952.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42259/original/qdmvfxnh-1393182952.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42259/original/qdmvfxnh-1393182952.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=520&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42259/original/qdmvfxnh-1393182952.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42259/original/qdmvfxnh-1393182952.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42259/original/qdmvfxnh-1393182952.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=654&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/bag.k">Sofie Pelsmakers</a></span>
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<p>Building on water avoids the need to reclaim land and floating structures are suitable for areas with a high risk of flooding. Connected to a floating pier, smaller buildings of two storeys are most suitable for this. They can still be connected to services using pipework that is waterproof and flexible to allow for the vertical movement of the building.</p>
<h2>Waterproofing</h2>
<p>Another way of making buildings more flood proof is to ensure minimal damage occurs to properties by “wet-proofing” them. This may be achieved through the use of water-resistant materials, for example concrete or tiles for floors, and more robust walls and fixtures. Electrical controls, cables and appliances should be placed higher than the normal, usually above one metre from the ground. This can be done in all areas that may potentially flood. </p>
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<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42260/original/k5r5nyhg-1393182996.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42260/original/k5r5nyhg-1393182996.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/42260/original/k5r5nyhg-1393182996.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42260/original/k5r5nyhg-1393182996.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42260/original/k5r5nyhg-1393182996.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=655&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42260/original/k5r5nyhg-1393182996.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42260/original/k5r5nyhg-1393182996.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/42260/original/k5r5nyhg-1393182996.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=823&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
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<span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/bag.k">Sofie Pelsmakers</a></span>
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<p>As well as new building in the future bearing in mind these options, most existing structures can be wet-proofed. This means they are designed with possible future flooding in mind and result in only minimal damage to the property should this happen. </p>
<p>The exact timing of flooding is unpredictable, but the question of it taking place cannot be ignored and it’s time to start implementing more of these flood-proofing measures. </p>
<p>These, and many more, can be easily incorporated into current building procedures. If the right foresight and planning are given, we can have flood-resistant buildings that aid mitigation efforts and, if need be, support the future adaptation of our cities for years to come.</p>
<p><em>This article is derived from my book <a href="http://www.ribabookshops.com/item/the-environmental-design-pocketbook/74334/">The Environmental Design Pocketbook</a> and chapter, <a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.5334/bag.k">“Future-proofing London”</a> in Sarah Bell and James Paskins’ Imagining the Future City: London 2062.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23536/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Sofie Pelsmakers does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>We’ve been told to get used to flooding. Whether or not the latest floods were caused by climate change, this winter has reminded us that floods are and will continue to be a fact of human existence, especially…Sofie Pelsmakers, Doctoral Researcher, UCL Energy Institute, UCLLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/234502014-02-24T05:55:46Z2014-02-24T05:55:46ZClimate change and natural patterns combined to bring wettest winter ever<p>An estimated <a href="http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/news/151942.aspx">5,800 homes and businesses</a> have been flooded in England and Wales this winter, now officially the <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-26280219">wettest ever</a>.</p>
<p>By comparison, the total was <a href="http://www.rmets.org/sites/default/files/pdf/presentation/20120222-harmar.pdf">55,300 properties</a> after the 2007 summer floods, and more than 10,000 following those in November 2000. So while rivers have been at their highest on record in some places this month, the flooding has been less widespread and less damaging than previously. This is little consolation to those currently underwater of course, but it leads to the obvious conclusion that this scale of flooding is not unprecedented. The fact is simply that we are not sufficiently resilient to floods.</p>
<p>The Environment Agency estimates <a href="http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/library/publications/108673.aspx">almost 500,000 properties</a> in England and Wales are insufficiently flood protected. This figure is based on those properties that will flood on average at least once in 75 years, but will include many that will flood much more regularly.</p>
<p>On a small island, our relatively large population is concentrated in lowlands and valley bottoms. Flat land next to rivers and coasts is attractive and cheap to develop, but most exposed. Planning controls have not been sufficiently restrictive, and as a wealthier society now than in the past we have more to lose. Risk is the combination of the probability of an event occurring and the loss it causes, and if the frequency of floods and the damage they cause rise, then flood risk will increase significantly.</p>
<p>One can question the 500,000 figure, but one does not need to be a statistician to establish that there are many thousands of properties that can expect to flood every few years, and many tens of thousands that can expect to flood every decade or so. </p>
<h2>A muddy history</h2>
<p>So why do we seem continually surprised that floods occur? Collective memory tends to be short: people live more transient lives, less rooted to a particular community. Just because no one can remember a recent flood doesn’t mean the risk has disappeared.</p>
<p>Our <a href="http://www.ceh.ac.uk/data/nrfa/">records of river flow and water levels</a> are surprisingly short. Most monitoring equipment was installed in the 1960s and 1970s, and with only 30-40 years of data it is difficult to estimate the magnitude of extreme events that occur, on average, much less frequently.</p>
<p>It’s not surprising then that new records are set in every major incident – the combination of only relatively recent historical data and the fact that each flood tends to affect a different set of places makes this statistically inevitable. Worse still, the usefulness of these already short records is reduced by both changing land use, which alters the way water flows through river catchments and the storage capacity of river channels, and by a changing climate, which alters the location, timing and duration of extreme rainfall events.</p>
<p>We know natural variation brings us cycles of flood-poor and flood-rich decades. In the very few places where we have <a href="http://www.ceh.ac.uk/data/nrfa/hydrometry/records.html">long records</a> that stretch back 100 years or more there is clear evidence of this. The 1890s and 1920s were two examples, and over the last 50 years we have moved from the flood poor decades of the 1960-1980s, to the flood rich decades from the late 1990s to the present.</p>
<p>This high natural variability in extreme weather events including flooding is probably driven by changes in global atmospheric and ocean circulation patterns, although this is by no means definitively established. This means estimating flood frequency from historical records is difficult, as records from flood-poor years may not tell us much about what to expect from the flood-rich period we currently find ourselves in.</p>
<p>So floods are inevitable, and worse now than in the recent past, and we have made things worse for ourselves as a society in the way we have approached building and flood protection. Moving 500,000 homes is not a viable option. We can spend money on flood defences for vulnerable properties, or share the risk collectively through <a href="https://theconversation.com/after-the-flood-finding-ways-to-insure-the-uninsurable-without-breaking-the-bank-23110">insurance</a>. Both are elements of the solution, but the extent to which society as a whole should pick up the costs for the risky decisions of some needs to be widely debated.</p>
<h2>Start small and local</h2>
<p>A better solution may be to ensure vulnerable properties are <a href="https://theconversation.com/beyond-sandbags-how-to-defend-your-house-from-flooding-23333">made more flood-resilient</a> so homeowners can recover more quickly and cheaply when they are flooded, rather than the enormous cost of trying to protect them entirely with massive flood defences. In this respect the government’s <a href="http://www.westernmorningnews.co.uk/Grants-5k-homeowners-businesses-hit-flooding/story-20613358-detail/story.html">offer of £5,000</a> to fund alterations to each flooded property that would make it more resilient – moving electric circuits and plug sockets up above flood levels, fitting flood-proof doors, waterproofing masonry – is a step in the right direction. </p>
<p>We also have to recognise that some of the uses to which we put our land are unsustainable. The profits from carefree building on floodplains benefit the developer, but the cost of flooding is borne by the homeowner and, in the long run, by society through taxpayer funded schemes and insurance costs.</p>
<p>Intensive farming practices also exacerbate the problem, by compacting soil which prevents water being absorbed into the ground and encourages more surface run-off. This washes away sediments that clog drainage systems and rivers, and washes fertiliser into ditches and streams that stimulates excessive plant growth, forcing water out onto the floodplain more quickly.</p>
<p>Both man-made climate change and natural variability are changing the frequency of flooding over time, but we don’t yet know which is more important. Our view is that over the next 20 years natural variability will have a greater impact, but over the next 100 years there is much greater scope to see an increase in flooding that is unequivocally the result of climate change.</p>
<p>Change is certain; but the details of how, where, and why are still unclear. What is unarguable is that in the UK there are steps that can be taken now to reduce the impact floods have, and to ensure that our ability to cope and respond to floods is not compromised in the future – we would be wise to take them.</p>
<p><em>Paul Bates is on the <a href="http://royalsociety.org/policy/projects/resilience-climate-change/">Royal Society working group</a> examining human resilience to climate change and disasters, whose report is due later this year.</em></p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23450/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul Bates receives funding from the UK Research Councils, The Leverhulme Trust, The Royal Society and the European Commission. He is a member of the Royal Society working group examining human resilience to climate change and disasters. He is married to an Environment Agency employee.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Penny Johnes receives funding from Natural Environment Research Council, Defra, Environment Agency.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thorsten Wagener receives funding from EPSRC, NERC and the European Research Council.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Richard Pancost does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>An estimated 5,800 homes and businesses have been flooded in England and Wales this winter, now officially the wettest ever. By comparison, the total was 55,300 properties after the 2007 summer floods…Paul Bates, Professor of Hydrology and Head, School of Geographical Sciences, University of BristolPenny Johnes, Professor of Biogeochemistry, University of BristolRichard Pancost, Professor of Biogeochemistry, Director of the Cabot Institute, University of BristolThorsten Wagener, Professor of Water and Environmental Engineering, University of BristolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/234482014-02-20T16:51:14Z2014-02-20T16:51:14ZFlood response hit by regional austerity cuts<p>Forecasters predict a wetter than normal start to March that will no doubt hamper efforts to bring an end to the misery of those whose homes are underwater. These extended floods and bad weather reveal the changes in how emergencies are handled.</p>
<p>Extreme weather conditions such as rainfall, wind, heat, cold, and tidal surges are becoming more common, and their impact felt for longer. Risk management planning by emergency services needs to start accommodating medium and long-term changes to the pattern of threats, particularly from the environment. This is something that <a href="http://www.ntu.ac.uk/apps/research/groups/22/home.aspx/group/143523/overview/public_management_and_governance_research_group">Public Management and Governance Research Group</a> and the <a href="http://www.ntu.ac.uk/soc/research/specialist_centres_units/65590.html">Emergency Services Research Unit</a> are already working on with the emergency services and government.</p>
<p>One of the key questions to arise from the current floods is why the government has seemed so out of touch with what is happening on the ground and why the preparations and responses to the emergency have been so uncoordinated. After all, we live in a world of round-the-clock media coverage and instant access to news on mobile phones and portable computers. Yet the government’s response to floods that began in December came weeks, even months late.</p>
<p>Part of the answer lies in the closure in 2011 of the <a href="http://www.parliament.uk/business/publications/research/briefing-papers/SN05842/the-abolition-of-regional-government">Government Offices</a>, a regional network that functioned as the local points of presence of central government departments. This has led to cuts in the capacity and funding of the regional resilience and emergency planning teams that had operated in the nine English regions.</p>
<p>The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/preparation-and-planning-for-emergencies-responsibilities-of-responder-agencies-and-others">Civil Contingencies Act</a> replaced the earlier and very much outdated Civil Defence and Emergency Powers legislation, most of which dated back to World War II.</p>
<p>This came about as domestic and terrorist threats to services, along with widespread flooding in England and Wales between 1998 and 2000 and the outbreak of <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-12483017">foot and mouth disease</a> in 2001, became more numerous and their social and economic impacts more widespread.</p>
<p>This Act established <a href="http://webarchive.nationalarchives.gov.uk/+/http://www.communities.gov.uk/fire/resilienceresponse/regionalresilience/">Regional Resilience Teams</a> in each regional office, small groups of dedicated specialists that co-ordinated and developed local resilience networks which brought together emergency planners and emergency responders. These include police, fire, ambulance and coastguard services, <a href="http://www.dft.gov.uk/mca/mcga07-home/emergencyresponse/resilience/list-of-responders.htm">but also experts</a> from for example the Environment Agency, Network Rail, Highways Agency, NHS, and electricity, gas and water utilities.</p>
<p>These specialists prepared and updated emergency plans and established a two-way dialogue between the centre office and local emergency responders through <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/the-role-of-local-resilience-forums-a-reference-document">Local Resilience Forums</a>. At times of emergencies they could call on their local knowledge, assistance and contacts in the area, or of the teams within the offices.</p>
<p>These teams knew their local areas well. They were in regular contact with all the key people on the ground in local communities – people who would know where and what resources were available, who would need to be involved, and how to effectively co-ordinate their deployment.</p>
<p>However, the regional Government Offices were caught up in the <a href="http://www.direct.gov.uk/prod_consum_dg/groups/dg_digitalassets/@dg/@en/documents/digitalasset/dg_191543.pdf">bonfire of the quangos</a> and swept away in a tide of austerity rhetoric and an anti-regional agenda spearheaded by Eric Pickles at the Department of Communities and Local Government.</p>
<p>Now, what’s left of the Regional Resilience Teams have become the responsibility of the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/improving-the-uks-ability-to-absorb-respond-to-and-recover-from-emergencies">Cabinet Office</a>, somewhat defeating the point of their local links, and numbers have been slashed. Staff now operate in a semi-peripatetic way across one of the three regions England is now divided into, essentially the North, Midlands and South. Inevitably these staff have a much thinner network of contacts, and no real chance of knowing the huge geographical areas under their control in the detail needed.</p>
<p>The local forums have been left in place but inevitably with less support and guidance. They are all experienced in dealing with emergencies, but at a time when the affects of emergencies such as these floods are becoming more widespread and prolonged, there is a greater rather than a lesser need for better co-operation between emergency services – services which have themselves been subject to significant funding cuts.</p>
<p>Stripping away this layer of regional government has resulted in a demonstrable loss of organisational capacity, as well as historical knowledge and experience, all at a time of rising demand. The government is well aware of the need for co-ordinated response – it established the <a href="http://www.jesip.org.uk/">Joint Emergency Services Interoperability Programme</a> between the three main emergency services which produced it’s first publication just weeks before the floods began. But for those on the ground, it’s a case of fine words butter no parsnips.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23448/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Peter Murphy receives commissions from local resilience forum services.</span></em></p>Forecasters predict a wetter than normal start to March that will no doubt hamper efforts to bring an end to the misery of those whose homes are underwater. These extended floods and bad weather reveal…Peter Murphy, Principal Lecturer in Public Service Management, Programme Director, Nottingham Trent UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/233332014-02-18T14:52:59Z2014-02-18T14:52:59ZBeyond sandbags – how to defend your house from flooding<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41832/original/b9rzyghj-1392727007.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Chertsey: never have so many, owed so much, to one sausage.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ki Price/PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>For much of the 20th century, faith has rested in bigger and better defences to hold back floodwaters. But repeated flooding has shown that large defences cannot, and should not, be the sole focus.</p>
<p>The first, and for most people the only, tools in the box to protect homes have been the thousands of sandbags handed out over the past few weeks. While some householders have taken great steps to fashion makeshift defences, sometimes with <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/a-last-stand-against-the-floods-defiant-sam-notaros-home-appears-set-to-succumb-to-water-9119525.html">the aid of mechanical diggers</a>, perhaps most magnificent is the 600-metre-long inflatable Aqua Dam erected by engineers in Chertsey in Surrey, quickly nicknamed the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/16/chertsey-sausage-flood-thames-dam-surrey">Chertsey Sausage</a>.</p>
<p>There has been much analysis of how the Environment Agency has commissioned flood defences, with it requiring works to demonstrate a cost-benefit ratio where <a href="https://www.nao.org.uk/report/flood-risk-management-in-england/">each £1 spent should reap £8 in savings</a>. This naturally tends to lead to spending in urban areas where higher populations mean greater damages. Perhaps it indicates that different approaches may be necessary in town and country.</p>
<p>With increasing urbanisation comes brick and paving in place of fields and vegetation that could help soak away water, which exacerbates the effects of flooding. This has revealed a newly identified risk, that of <a href="http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/news/151190.aspx">surface water flooding</a>, caused not by inundation from rivers or the sea but from the over-development of land, where water builds up faster than it can drain away. </p>
<p>It’s something that already affects thousands of homes around the country: in 2001, surface water was not a recognised threat, but by 2011 <a href="http://cms.its.waikato.ac.nz/spe/people/iainw/Planning-Theory-and-Practice-Special-Issue-on-Flooding.pdf">3.8m properties were considered at risk</a>. Surface water flooding can occur often but might only affect one or two streets at a time, meaning that it’s rare that incidents get national attention. But importantly, it’s something that substantial flood defences – sea walls, canalisation, embankments – cannot prevent, as it emerges behind these flood defence “frontlines”. </p>
<p>A <a href="http://www.theccc.org.uk/publication/climate-change-is-the-uk-preparing-for-flooding-and-water-scarcity-3rd-progress-report-2012/">report</a> from the UK’s Climate Change Committee indicated that over the past ten years, new building and development on flood-risk areas has increased by 12%, compared to an increase of 7% in areas not at risk. We are setting ourselves up for problems later. </p>
<h2>Smarter walls, not bigger walls</h2>
<p>Our project, <a href="http://www.smartfloodprotection.com/">SMARTeST</a> examined how the latest flood protection measures could be retrofitted to properties to make them more resilient to flooding, or how similar defences could be incorporated at a street level. The <a href="http://www.architecture.com/SustainabilityHub/Designstrategies/Water/1-3-2-3-Floodresilience.aspx">flood resilience</a> industry is an emerging sector in Europe whose products – such as door guards, air brick covers, and temporary perimeter barriers – are promising, when used correctly.</p>
<p>For example, water can come through permeable brickwork which may require waterproofing. Air brick covers can also prevent water from coming in but still allow ventilation. The pressure of floodwaters often causes drainage systems to back up through toilets or plugholes, so one-way valves or toilet bungs are easy ways to prevent sewerage backflow that can cause horrible and expensive damage. There are technologies that can be directly applied, which include sealants for potential areas of ingress through walls and floors, waterproofing materials and membranes, and integrated warning systems. It is now possible to get cavity wall insulation that also prevents water penetration.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41835/original/8fpgzhr6-1392728210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41835/original/8fpgzhr6-1392728210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41835/original/8fpgzhr6-1392728210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41835/original/8fpgzhr6-1392728210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41835/original/8fpgzhr6-1392728210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41835/original/8fpgzhr6-1392728210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41835/original/8fpgzhr6-1392728210.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">For this next trick, you will need: a sealed tank, and a lot of water.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Garvin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>The costs of retrofitting vary depending on the type of building, and the level of protection required. Many properties will require a package of technologies. Those that are manually rather than automatically operated tend to be cheaper, but rely on good warning systems and community flood groups to ensure they are activated when needed. More complex considerations include terraced or semi-detached housing: where there are shared party walls, protection applied to one property may be compromised if neighbours do not take similar steps. </p>
<p>The average cost of fitting flood defence equipment to a property in a trial government scheme amounted to <a href="http://cdn.environment-agency.gov.uk/geho0312bwdv-e-e.pdf">just under £5,000</a>, but some estimates can go up to £30,000. While expensive, this higher up-front cost is compares well to the financial damage, <a href="http://www.channel4.com/news/floods-insurance-west-country-thames-valley-premiums">estimated at between £30,000-40,000</a> on each occasion, and especially the emotional damage of being flooded out of house and home.</p>
<p>Taking into account the rising sea levels and more extreme weather that climate change is expected to bring, these products could start looking like a smart investment. While not a replacement for large scale flood defences, they may be more appropriate in the countryside, or in low-lying areas and where surface water is prevalent.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41836/original/g889d2cg-1392728600.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41836/original/g889d2cg-1392728600.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41836/original/g889d2cg-1392728600.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41836/original/g889d2cg-1392728600.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=441&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41836/original/g889d2cg-1392728600.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41836/original/g889d2cg-1392728600.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41836/original/g889d2cg-1392728600.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=554&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Automatically-triggered, spring-loaded flood barriers.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Stephen Garvin</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Unfortunately, the flood resilience industry is not well supported by standards or regulations. These products are hard to acquire, cannot be bought off-the-shelf, and often properties will need to combine a number of different measures to be protected. The <a href="http://nationalfloodforum.org.uk/">National Flood Forum</a> charity provides advice for householders looking for <a href="http://www.quoterack.co.uk/documents/Repairing_your_home_or_business_after_a_flood.pdf">flood protection measures</a>, or who are having trouble getting insurance. They publish the <a href="http://www.bluepages.org.uk/">Blue Pages</a>, a directory of companies that provide flood defence products.</p>
<p>And we also found householders were often let down: poor-quality property surveys, recommending inappropriate devices, or poor installation. Property owners complained that impartial advice was hard to find, leading to a general lack of trust in the industry’s products. One of our project’s outcomes was the <a href="http://www.smartfloodprotection.com/?page_id=27">Six Steps</a> guide, to help navigate these difficult waters.</p>
<p>There are many missed opportunities: if households are being retrofitted for energy efficiency measures, it seems sensible to consider their resilience to flooding too. Building regulations need to be strengthened, and the public need to be more aware of what is available. The example “flood resilient” home <a href="http://www.aquobex.com/about/flood-resilient-property">currently planned</a> at BRE’s innovation park in Watford as a joint venture between <a href="http://www.bre.co.uk/page.jsp?id=3187">BRE</a>, Aquobex and Baca Architects will be demonstration of what is possible.</p>
<p>One hope to emerge from these floods is that the opportunity is taken to provide a considered and measured response to improve the flood resilience of those most at risk, and ultimately decrease the financial and emotional costs that flooding brings.</p>
<p><em>The authors thank Stephen Garvin, <a href="https://www.bre.co.uk/page.jsp?id=874">scheme director at BRE</a> for his expertise</em>.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23333/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Angela Connelly as part of the SMARTeST project receives funding from the EU under the FP7 programme. The wider research can be found at <a href="http://www.floodresilience.eu">http://www.floodresilience.eu</a>. BRE's flood resilient home has received £50,000 from Defra. Other funding for the project has come from the University of Manchester's Strategic Investment Research Framework and Manchester Metropolitan University’s Institute of Humanities and Social Science Research.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Iain White has received funding from the EU FP7 programme for the SMARTeST project.
</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nigel Lawson receives funding from Defra, EPSRC, EU FP7 funding.</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>Paul O'Hare has worked on RCUK (Resilient Design) and EU FP7-funded (SMARTeST) projects.</span></em></p>For much of the 20th century, faith has rested in bigger and better defences to hold back floodwaters. But repeated flooding has shown that large defences cannot, and should not, be the sole focus. The…Angela Connelly, Research Associate, University of ManchesterIain White, Professor of Environmental Planning, University of WaikatoNigel Lawson, Honorary Fellow, University of ManchesterPaul O'Hare, Lecturer in Human Geography and Urban Development, Manchester Metropolitan UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/233302014-02-18T06:09:49Z2014-02-18T06:09:49ZUpstream must work with downstream to fix flooding<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41708/original/qphngxpw-1392648433.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">'Don't worry, I've got hold of the plug.'</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Parsons/PA Wire</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>With much of the UK still underwater and <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-weather-rain-to-worsen-floods-following-brief-respite-on-sunday-9133120.html">flooding set to continue</a>, knee jerk reactions abound. <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/02/11/world/europe/british-politicians-blame-one-another-for-unexpected-flooding.html?_r=0">Politicians bicker</a>, flooded communities and farmers lobby their causes and <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25911391">calls are made</a> to dredge rivers and raise embankments. All efforts should be made to protect lives and infrastructure during the flood, but the real question is not how to stop the flooding now – that is disaster management. The real question is what happens after the floods have gone.</p>
<p>The legacy of decisions made after flooding have long term implications and costs that are borne by future generations. A little look at history shows the types of flood prevention we should avoid and those we need to implement. One thing is clear, areas upstream and downstream of rivers are connected and must work together to tackle future flood risks. </p>
<h2>History lessons</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jul/25/weather.flooding1">great floods of 1947</a> – still the worst in some rivers – led to wholesale dredging, the widening and embanking of watercourses, including the removal of bankside trees, and the construction of sluices. In short, the kind of response being suggested by some as an appropriate management for our rivers after this winter’s floods.</p>
<p>But the 40 years of river and land management policy adopted after the 1947 floods and the flash floods in Lynton and Lynmouth in 1952 caused <a href="http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.3270040207/abstract">major environmental decline</a> in our watercourses. The litany of loss includes swathes of wetland habitats, decline in species and the wholesale change in our rural landscape, as a result of intense agriculture production. </p>
<p>Rivers became characterised by higher temperatures (no shade), greater levels of silt deposits (more sources and routes for soil from intensive farming), more nitrate and phosphates (from fertiliser) and increased efficiency of flood water movement from field to flood channel. Consequently, channels were choked with vegetation and sediment, and river banks failed because they were undermined by dredging. The cost of maintaining these new watercourses was colossal to environment, exchequer and on future generations.</p>
<h2>We’re all connected</h2>
<p>Geomorphology and hydrology, the sciences of sediment and water respectively, show us a different view of flooding to that portrayed by the scenes of flooded individuals and communities. They show that flooding is characterised by connections between atmosphere and land (rain), land and rivers (drainage), upstream management activity and downstream flooding, upstream communities and those living downstream. The water and silt in the kitchens of flooded houses passed over the fields, through the land drains and streams, and along the rivers of those people living in the upstream catchment. Flooding reminds us that people are connected to one another by water and sediment.</p>
<p>In this respect, debates about <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/03/britain-faces-choice-of-saving-town-or-country-from-floods-says-agency-chief">town vs country</a> are unhelpful – everyone in a catchment is involved in flood risk management now and in the future. A connected view shows us how floods are generated and how interventions we make in one place can be transmitted to other communities in the catchment. The fact is that flood peaks are a result of the intensity and amount of rainfall (climate), how quickly this water is transferred from upstream to a given downstream point (land surface characteristics and efficiency of drainage) and local factors such as the gradient of the river and the size of the channel. </p>
<p>Decades of government funded drainage and dredging has increased that rate of delivery of water and sediments to downstream communities. This brings with it the soils and fertilisers that build up in flood channels and require expensive dredging and weed clearance, reducing aquatic biodiversity. Similarly, urbanisation and development produces very rapid rates of water transfer into rivers, locally increasing flood levels. </p>
<p>Understanding connectivity also points us away from site-based solutions such as dredging, and instead opens up a much wider range of solutions that may well be cheaper to implement, more effective in the long term and under a changing climate, and less damaging to the environment. As we learned after the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/local/york/hi/people_and_places/newsid_9153000/9153477.stm">millennium floods</a> and the much more damaging <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26182761">floods of 2007</a>, we need a significant change in our approach to flood risk management. Crucially, we need to make it happen rather more quickly.</p>
<h2>Strategies to slow the flow</h2>
<p>The <a href="http://www.forestry.gov.uk/fr/INFD-7YML5R">Slowing the Flow</a> project is one example of what a new approach to flood risk management might look like. Developed following the 2007 floods, it is about working with nature to try and store more water in the landscape and slow its passage downstream. Here the community has been able to use a SimCity-style computer model that enabled them to see what solutions worked best and where. Local people were invited to simulate felling trees into rivers in the headwaters and then see how these affected the flood peak downstream. </p>
<p>So what to do after the flood? First and foremost there needs to be a full review to learn lessons both nationally and locally. This must have clear objectives to identify how better to deliver help to flooded communities under such events, what flood defences to repair and which to improve. </p>
<p>The entire range of options available for increasing the resilience of our catchments to future extreme events must also be reviewed. These should include zero tolerance of new floodplain development, identifying measures to trap and store more water and sediment in headwaters and on upstream floodplains. </p>
<p>It might include removing some old flood embankments or raising the bed levels in watercourses that were dredged in the past, where it can be demonstrated that it will reduce flood risk to communities downstream. A current example is being demonstrated by the efforts made to reduce flooding in Winchester by raising the bed of the River Itchen upstream in order to temporarily store water in meadows and wetlands. </p>
<p>We must also look carefully at the strategic planting of woodlands and using low berms (raised barriers) to slow the flow and store sediments upstream. We must also look at ways of offsetting the impacts of increased flooding on land upstream, ensuring that food and flood risk can operate together as part of a farm economy. For those in homes on the floodplain greater support is needed to improve flood proofing of properties, including the redesign of urban landscapes. Water storage must be increased in low risk areas and surfaces retrofitted to absorb more water. </p>
<p>Rising groundwater is a more difficult challenge to cope with. As these long duration floods are demonstrating, this is also a major cause of flooding. Groundwater flooding is pervasive and long lasting. New sustainable solutions for this are urgently needed. </p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23330/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Sear receives funding from RCUK, Defra, Natural England, Environment Agency. He is affiliated with the University of Southampton and the River Restoration Centre.</span></em></p>With much of the UK still underwater and flooding set to continue, knee jerk reactions abound. Politicians bicker, flooded communities and farmers lobby their causes and calls are made to dredge rivers…David Sear, Professor in Physical Geography, University of SouthamptonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/231102014-02-17T14:55:46Z2014-02-17T14:55:46ZAfter the flood: finding ways to insure the uninsurable without breaking the bank<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41616/original/w9g8x6bb-1392567651.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How to insure the uninsurable?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Matt Alexander/PA </span></span></figcaption></figure><p>More wet and windy weather arrives week after week, with the inundated areas of the south and southwest of Britain still at the mercy of the elements. Even while politicians begin <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/feb/10/uk-floods-cameron-ministers-flooding">the blame game</a>, we should look further ahead to when the floodwaters recede, the clean-up begins – and talk turns to who will pay.</p>
<p>In most countries, the government plays a role in covering flood losses. The UK is unusual because the government does not award compensation directly to individuals. Money is provided to local authorities through the <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/bellwin-scheme-2013-to-2014-guidance">Bellwin Scheme</a> to reimburse the costs of emergency measures taken to safeguard life or property. But this is only intended to cover uninsurable risk.</p>
<p>Damage to private property is considered insurable and is not covered, which means compensation is drawn from the insurance industry, or charitable aid. The <a href="http://www.princescountrysidefund.org.uk/news-events/news/prince%E2%80%99s-countryside-fund-gives-emergency-funding-flood-devastated-rural-communitie">Prince’s Countryside Fund</a> and the Duke of Westminster were among the first to make donations to help the flood victims, donating £50,000 each. As the floods continue, other <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/pm-welcomes-action-from-businesses-in-support-of-flood-victims">businesses have pledged support</a>. The government has also announced new measures, including a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/news/new-measures-to-help-communities-hit-by-flooding#repair-renew">£5,000 grant to households and businesses</a> to pay for repairs which improve a property’s ability to withstand future flooding. But most of those with property underwater will have to rely on insurance.</p>
<h2>Unchartered waters</h2>
<p>Big changes have swept through Britain’s flood insurance landscape. Until last July, flood insurance cover was available to households and small businesses as a standard feature of buildings and contents insurance under the <a href="https://www.abi.org.uk/Insurance-and-savings/Topics-and-issues/Flooding/Government-and-insurance-industry-flood-agreement">Statement of Principles</a>. Under this agreement, members of the Association of British Insurers (ABI) agreed to cover properties at risk of flooding in return for government commitment to manage flood risk.</p>
<p>Following extensive negotiations a new flood insurance scheme, <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/uploads/system/uploads/attachment_data/file/265445/water-bill-flood-insurance-finance-accountablity.pdf">Flood Re</a>, was announced last June. This establishes a stand-alone, industry-run, not-for-profit insurance fund due to begin in 2015. Flood Re will provide cover for about 500,000 properties deemed at risk by the Environment Agency that might otherwise be uninsurable, or whose premiums are unaffordable. But the limitations of the Flood Re scheme need to be recognised.</p>
<p>While ABI members will continue to meet their commitments to existing customers, there’s no guarantee prices won’t rise between now and the implementation of Flood Re. In fact <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/insurance/buildingsandcontent/10623864/Flood-victims-abandoned-by-the-insurance-lifeboat.html">stories are already emerging</a> about dramatic premium hikes, and the expectation is that these will <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10630154/UK-weather-homeowners-will-not-be-covered-by-flood-insurance-scheme-amid-loophole.html">rise further</a>.</p>
<h2>Policy recommendations</h2>
<p>The government needs to take responsibility in the event of a catastrophic flood, but Flood Re’s liability will be capped at an expected limit of about £2.5 billion per year, equivalent to a 1:200 year flood loss scenario. As to who will bear the costs beyond this, the government has made no commitment. But this is a question that needs an answer. PricewaterhouseCoopers have estimated the insurance losses for December and January at £630 million, and while it’s too early to count the costs of the current floods, insurance industry forecasts suggest losses <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/business/2014/feb/10/flooding-costs-one-billion-pounds-insurance-expert-warns-rising-premiums">could reach £1 billion</a> if the rains continue.</p>
<p>What is also needed from the government and insurers are incentives to reduce flood risk. Planning controls need to restrict development in flood risk areas, set higher standards for buildings on floodplains, and require that the best techniques to improve resilience against flooding are used when rebuilding and refitting after flood damage. As we argued in a paper published in <a href="http://www.nature.com/nclimate/journal/v3/n11/full/nclimate2025.html?WT.ec_id=NCLIMATE-201311">Nature Climate Change</a>, using the flood insurance market to drive better adaptation to flood risk and the effects of climate change needs to be part of a wider strategy that includes land-use planning, building regulations and water management.</p>
<p>The Flood Re scheme needs to be clear whose insurance it will subsidise, and the effects on those not insured under the scheme. In fact many properties at risk will be excluded from the scheme. When Flood Re was first proposed, three categories of property owners were excluded from participation: small businesses, properties built after 1 January 2009, and properties in the highest council tax band.</p>
<p>It has since emerged that Flood Re will exclude many more properties than originally thought, with any policy classed as “non-domestic” unable to participate in the scheme, regardless of the risk. This will include housing association and council properties, many leasehold or private rented sector properties where homes are not insured individually, and properties which are both a residence and a business.</p>
<p>As it is, Flood Re does not reduce flood loss, but only spreads the risk, and therefore the costs, by protecting some policyholders at the expense of others. High-risk properties will be subsidised for decades by payments from low-risk households, with the financial risk still covered by the insurance industry, and government carrying no liability. Policyholders are unlikely to accept this situation without protest, and here the US experience may prove instructive.</p>
<h2>Lessons from the US</h2>
<p>In the US, flood coverage is excluded from property policies provided by private insurers, and is only available through the <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/01/30/senate-approves-delay-in-higher-flood-insurance-premiums/">National Flood Insurance Program</a> (NFIP), with the federal government acting as insurer of last resort. Following massive payments for flood claims related to Hurricanes Katrina and Sandy, the NFIP is approximately US$26 billion in debt. This led to legislation to reform the program, phasing out subsidies over five years, and increasing the annual rate until premiums reflect the true risk.</p>
<p>But as rates rose and <a href="http://www.tampabay.com/news/business/banking/battling-flood-insurance-rate-hikes-without-government-help/2160697">homeowners faced huge bills</a>, sometimes <a href="http://www.bradenton.com/2014/01/09/4926356/washington-interest-group-says.html">hikes of 600-1000%</a>, they pressured congress to delay these rate hikes. Republicans and Democrats found common cause for once, with the proposal sailing through the normally divided senate <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/post-politics/wp/2014/01/30/senate-approves-delay-in-higher-flood-insurance-premiums/">in a matter of weeks</a>. Less than two years after the flood insurance reform legislation was passed, the senate voted to delay premium increases for up to four years while the <a href="http://www.fema.gov/">Federal Emergency Management Agency</a> drafts a plan to make flood insurance premiums more affordable and re-evaluates the accuracy of its <a href="http://www.fema.gov/floodplain-management/flood-insurance-rate-map-firm">Flood Insurance Rate Maps</a>.</p>
<p>Flood insurance reform efforts in the US have shown the political implications of angry voters. With flooding in some parts of Britain about to enter a third month and costs spiralling, it is something the UK government is also learning the hard way, with Flood Re facing its first test before it even has come into operation.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23110/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Diane Horn receives funding from the ESPRC for an industrial CASE studentship with the Willis Research Network as industrial partner titled 'Future Flood - modelling the impact of planning policy on flood vulnerability and insurance risk in the Thames Gateway'. She has also received funding as part of a visiting scholarship from the Climate Change and Sea Level Rise Initiative at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia.</span></em></p>More wet and windy weather arrives week after week, with the inundated areas of the south and southwest of Britain still at the mercy of the elements. Even while politicians begin the blame game, we should…Diane Horn, Reader in coastal geomorphology , Birkbeck, University of LondonLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/232662014-02-17T08:53:46Z2014-02-17T08:53:46ZHistorical record shows these floods are no high-water mark<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41594/original/78bcjbb2-1392399492.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Definitely no entry.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Neil Macdonald</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The flooding of the Thames and Severn rivers <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/topics/weather/10634703/River-Thames-flooding-before-and-after-aerials.html">over the past week</a> has brought the misery of being flooded to many more people beyond the sodden Somerset Levels.</p>
<p>Such a prolonged period of rainfall – the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2014/feb/01/january-uk-wettest-winter-month-250-years">wettest winter since records began</a> – has overwhelmed the soil and groundwater’s natural capacity to draw water away. While the flooding has caused widespread disruption and inconvenience, that’s not to say they’re the worst “in living memory”.</p>
<p>There are records kept for most rivers in the UK that record river flow going back around 40 years, with records at a handful of sites such as York, Nottingham and Teddington on the Thames in west London going back for more than a century. These records are invaluable in helping us map and understand flood risk. Where few instrumental records exist we can use other forms of evidence such as flood marks and documentary accounts such as those found in diaries or newspaper reports.</p>
<p>Flood marks such as these provide insight to the level of floodwaters in the past. When these pictures were taken earlier this week at Wallingford, the flood was comparable to the level reached in 2003 and 2007 – both “in living memory” – but was far below the high-water mark of the largest flood recorded on the Thames in the last couple of hundred years, here in 1894.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41596/original/q7bm7pqm-1392399557.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41596/original/q7bm7pqm-1392399557.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41596/original/q7bm7pqm-1392399557.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41596/original/q7bm7pqm-1392399557.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41596/original/q7bm7pqm-1392399557.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=400&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41596/original/q7bm7pqm-1392399557.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41596/original/q7bm7pqm-1392399557.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41596/original/q7bm7pqm-1392399557.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=503&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 2003 and 2007 flood water marks on the Thames.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Neil Macdonald</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Flood levels may vary throughout a catchment area, so a flood level may be higher or lower upstream or downstream of a site as a result of local factors such as drainage, run-off, vegetation and additional water from tributaries or upwelling groundwater.</p>
<p>While some care is needed in interpretation of the records, what this shows is that the current flooding is not quite as rare as some have claimed. Over the past few hundred years large floods occurred on the Thames in 1774, 1852, 1894 and 1947. The British Evening Post of London recorded on March 15 1774:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>At Kingston, the water having reached up to the town hall, and spread over far the greater part of the town; the people could not keep the market there on Saturday last … At Teddington, the water rose in the church to a considerable height. And at Twickenham, the flood on Saturday evening was full one feet higher than it was 115 Years ago; though at that time it was higher than was ever known before … At Isleworth, the water was so high, that they could not get to the church without boats, so that this flood in the River Thames, was, in all probability, the greatest that ever was in this river.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Major floods struck the Somerset levels in 1811, 1876, 1894 and 1929, and the Severn in 1672, 1770, 1795, 1852, 1869 and 1947. The floods across southern England in 1947 <a href="http://planetearth.nerc.ac.uk/news/story.aspx?id=1175">were the 20th century’s worst</a>, in extent and <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/jul/25/weather.flooding1">cost of damages</a>.</p>
<figure class="align-center zoomable">
<a href="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41597/original/wjmxg5q5-1392399718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=1000&fit=clip"><img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41597/original/wjmxg5q5-1392399718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41597/original/wjmxg5q5-1392399718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41597/original/wjmxg5q5-1392399718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41597/original/wjmxg5q5-1392399718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41597/original/wjmxg5q5-1392399718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41597/original/wjmxg5q5-1392399718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/41597/original/wjmxg5q5-1392399718.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px"></a>
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The 1894 high-water mark, several feet above today’s.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Neil Macdonald</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>In the past decade or so the UK has witnessed a number of serious floods, with those that struck <a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate/uk/interesting/autumn2000.html">Yorkshire and central England in 2000</a> signalling the start of the apparently flood-rich phase which we are currently passing through. It seems from the historical record that this is not unknown – a number of such phases can be identified over the last 500 years. But up until 2000 there had been relatively few severe floods since the 1920s (for example 1968 and 1947, and the east coast floods from the North Sea in 1953). With memory and experience of floods reduced in many communities, expectations of what could be expected is reduced.</p>
<p>So we should take note from our current predicament and learn from this and from past events. We must develop long-term sustainable approaches to managing the risk of floods and not fall back on short-term responses that will be unsustainable, and ultimately won’t improve the situation over the long term.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23266/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Neil Macdonald receives funding from RCUK (AHRC and NERC).</span></em></p>The flooding of the Thames and Severn rivers over the past week has brought the misery of being flooded to many more people beyond the sodden Somerset Levels. Such a prolonged period of rainfall – the…Neil Macdonald, Senior Lecturer in Risk, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/231452014-02-17T06:12:43Z2014-02-17T06:12:43ZThe Daily Mail’s petition gets international aid wrong<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41633/original/ht9gwj74-1392596268.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Right twice a day - but not this time.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Parsons/PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The Daily Mail has <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2559863/230-000-join-Mail-call-use-UKs-11billion-foreign-aid-budget-tackle-floods-crisis.html">launched</a> a petition which strongly urges prime minister David Cameron to “divert some of the £11 billion a year spent on overseas aid to ease the suffering of British flood victims, and to build and maintain flood defences to prevent a repetition of this crisis”. The petition has received over 200,000 signatures, and more are pouring in. </p>
<p>The campaign has attracted high profile supporters: Jilly Cooper has been <a href="http://www.gloucestershireecho.co.uk/Author-Jilly-Cooper-backs-newspaper-campaign/story-20611379-detail/story.html">quoted</a> as saying, “We give millions of pounds in aid to India and China and never spend on our own. It’s ridiculous.” The Mail’s web page lists various aid projects and recipients (including flood victims in Pakistan and Mozambique), pointing to failed projects, corrupt governments, and well-feathered aid agencies. The message is clear – there are British people in dire need, some of our aid money is going to increasingly powerful and competitive countries, while the rest is frittered away on failing projects or stolen by corrupt elites. </p>
<p>Responding to the Mail’s campaign, David Cameron has insisted that money will be no object in responding to the floods, and that as a wealthy country, Britain does not need to cut into its aid budget to support those affected or to develop future flood protection. But in the coming days and weeks, it won’t just be the inhabitants of Somerset and the Thames valley who’ll find it hard to weather the storm.</p>
<p>The argument against aid is a seductive one, and is hugely popular with many Tory MPs and members of the public. Supporters of foreign aid have always had to confront compelling arguments that “charity begins at home”, and the combination of a period of national austerity together with visually dramatic events causing suffering to thousands of British citizens has once again raised this quite legitimate question. The Mail has also successfully tapped into a number of serious concerns that have long haunted the world of aid; after all, ensuring efficient, effective and accountable development outcomes for poor people in poor countries is no easy task. Like many scholars, I am critical of many of the interests and agendas that are pursued through aid, in both donor and recipient countries.</p>
<p>Even so, the Mail’s campaign is misguided at best, pernicious at worst, drawing on and stoking a set of myths and distortions. Perhaps most problematically, the campaign diverts attention from other practical and moral imperatives exposed by the unprecedented storms – in particular, climate change.</p>
<h2>The truth about aid</h2>
<p>Lets start with the Mail’s grim assessment of foreign aid’s success. There is an element of truth to some of its concerns, but rather than support efforts to find more effective and accountable approaches to poverty reduction and humanitarian relief, the Mail would simply axe this budget. It seems trite to observe that no matter how awful the consequences of the UK storms and flooding are for British farms, households and businesses – and they are awful indeed – unlike the victims of similar events in many other parts of the world, British people are relatively unlikely to lose their children to disease in the aftermath, or to be left to repair their lives completely uninsured with little or no state support. </p>
<p>With these circumstances still regularly befalling the citizens of vastly poorer countries, we need to provide better aid, not no aid. At the same time, as the Daily Mail has itself <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2116862/At-Britain-axes-aid-India-country-rich-space-programme-STILL-1-6bn-handout.html">reported</a>, Britain and other donors are already rapidly pulling out of China and India – not least because these rising powers will no longer tolerate what they more and more see as the <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/poverty-matters/2012/nov/09/india-tears-end-uk-aid">demeaning position</a> of aid recipient.</p>
<p>But if the petitioners are not persuaded by moral arguments around differential degrees of human suffering, they might be swayed if they knew more about the value of aid to the UK economy. The British aid budget provides substantial support to UK-based consultancies and businesses (including, I should add, the occasional academic researcher). The aid budget subsidises the costs of hosting refugees in the UK (something <a href="http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2536167/Now-overseas-aid-spent-asylum-seekers-Britain-10m-used-fund-housing-benefits.html">not lost on the Mail</a>), and it pays the pensions of retired colonial officials. Most of DFID’s large contracts <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/global-development/datablog/2012/sep/21/why-is-uk-aid-going-to-uk-companies">go to UK companies</a>, while the aid budget also supports British military operations (help for heroes?). The list goes on. </p>
<p>In other words, the UK aid budget stimulates the British economy and jobs, and this is only likely to grow as DFID increasingly embraces a <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/policies/helping-developing-countries-economies-to-grow">growth-oriented</a> and private sector-led vision of development. Supporting trade and investment in ways that are profitable to British companies, and perhaps even the Treasury, is increasingly the order of the day. Leaving aside the question of whether or not this is the best way to achieve poverty reduction, the fact is that aid is far more beneficial to the British economy than most people realise.</p>
<p>The Mail’s campaign should not be dismissed out of hand. It raises some hard truths, and some genuine moral dilemmas. But it relies on a partial and sanitised understanding of foreign aid, and continues to frame it as (misguided) charity that simply pours money down the drain. Besides focusing exclusively on the failures of aid and not its achievements, this misses the substantial direct and indirect benefits that aid – rightly or wrongly – returns to its donors. </p>
<p>But more importantly, with its mean-spirited and parochial call to end international aid, the campaign refuses any possibility that we might connect more closely to those Mozambicans and Pakistanis who have also endured horrendous flooding. The world is facing global threats and needs global solutions. The Daily Mail would have us neither acknowledge our responsibilities (in the form of our greenhouse gas emissions) nor do anything about the well-established consequences for others. The terrible flooding should inspire us to solidarity, and to collective action: pulling up the drawbridge is no solution.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23145/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Emma Mawdsley has received funding from DFID in the past. The research was independently conducted, and there is no implication that DFID would agree with the findings.</span></em></p>The Daily Mail has launched a petition which strongly urges prime minister David Cameron to “divert some of the £11 billion a year spent on overseas aid to ease the suffering of British flood victims…Emma Mawdsley, University Senior Lecturer, University of CambridgeLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/231982014-02-17T06:07:43Z2014-02-17T06:07:43ZGet used to flooding, climate change will bring more of it<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41603/original/8wzmz62n-1392402531.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">More of this to come.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Steve Parsons/PA Archive</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Flooding continues to afflict many parts of southern Britain. Areas of the Somerset Levels have been submerged for weeks, large parts of the Thames Valley are under water and the River Severn is bursting to the brink. The coasts of Cornwall and Wales have been battered by storms, and farmland and buildings have been flooded from the sea. This barrage of wet weather begs the question: is climate change to blame and what might we expect in the future? </p>
<p>The evidence that human activity is leading to an increase in global average temperature is extremely strong, and was presented most recently in the <a href="http://www.ipcc.ch/">IPCC’s report</a> published in September last year. However, it is not really fair to ask whether one individual event (or indeed season) was caused by climate change. A more appropriate question is whether the increasing concentration of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere has changed the risk of experiencing extreme events. </p>
<p>A gambling analogy illustrates this: if we throw a pair of sixes, we put this down to luck. If we then throw several pairs of sixes, we begin to believe that the dice are loaded. Climate change is loading the dice.</p>
<h2>Rising water</h2>
<p>Global average <a href="http://www.metoffice.gov.uk/climate-guide/climate-change">sea level rose</a> approximately 19cm between 1901 and 2010, and around 5cm since 1993. It therefore takes less of a storm surge for coastal flooding to occur now than it did a few decades ago. Warmer air can hold more water, and across many parts of the world we have seen more heavy rain over the last few decades. The UK has had several bouts of serious flooding in the last few years – the floods of 2007 and 2012 come readily to mind – but the flooding this year appears to be more extensive, more extreme and to have lasted for longer than we’ve recently experienced.</p>
<p>What is more uncertain, however, is the extent to which increasing greenhouse gas concentrations are leading to changes in the occurrence and intensity of storms. Most large scale flooding across the UK is primarily driven by prolonged and persistent rain coming – usually from the Atlantic – in a sequence of rain-bearing weather systems called depressions. We now know that such prolonged wet and stormy weather across the UK is strongly linked to the position and strength of the North Atlantic jet stream. </p>
<p>We in the UK are at the downstream wet end of the jet stream, and therefore very sensitive to how it varies from year to year. The North Atlantic Jet Stream has been very strong this year, which has been linked with unusually heavy rainfall over Indonesia, and the tropical western Pacific Ocean. But many different factors may also influence the jet stream. Weather in one part of the world can be strongly connected with what is happening elsewhere.</p>
<h2>Forecasting future weather</h2>
<p>Looking ahead, we expect sea level to carry on rising and heavy rainfalls to become even more frequent. <a href="http://www.doeni.gov.uk/index/protect_the_environment/climate_change/uk_climate_change_projections-3.htm">Most projections</a> of future climate across the UK suggest that we will experience wetter conditions in winter, and therefore that flood risk will continue. Because of our sensitivity to the position of the jet stream and the large variability from year to year, it is currently difficult to predict exactly how flood risk will change. However, we can be confident that relying on past experience and the historical record to estimate flood risk will probably lead us to underestimate our future exposure to flooding. </p>
<p>When the waters recede and we start to think about how to cope with future floods – as we clearly need to do – two things are necessary. First, we need to work out how to estimate what climate change might do to flood risk. This means we need to understand how different parts of the global weather system fit together – this is the subject of much new research. Second, we need to accept that we probably will not be able to estimate precisely how flood risk may change in the near future. The climate system is complex and requires that we develop ways of coping with risk that are flexible and adaptable – and which leave options open in the future.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/23198/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Nigel Arnell has received research funding for his group at the University of Reading from NERC, the Environment Agency, Defra and DECC.</span></em></p>Flooding continues to afflict many parts of southern Britain. Areas of the Somerset Levels have been submerged for weeks, large parts of the Thames Valley are under water and the River Severn is bursting…Nigel Arnell, Professor of Climate Change Science, Director of the Walker Institute, University of ReadingLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/229692014-02-13T10:25:39Z2014-02-13T10:25:39ZDecisions made while we are waist-deep in floodwater won’t keep us dry in the future<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41370/original/6wxq84pk-1392208774.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">How much is a hovercraft?</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Akuppa</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>From the isolation of entire villages in the flood-hit Somerset Levels to coastal rail tracks <a href="https://theconversation.com/invest-in-railway-lines-like-one-at-dawlish-before-they-wash-away-22919">falling into the sea</a> at Dawlish in Devon, the economic, social and emotional damage to those hit by extreme weather is likely to be severe and far-reaching.</p>
<p>But stormy weather will strike again – perhaps even more frequently and intensely.</p>
<p>The effects of extreme weather and storms are part of the natural course of the evolution of coastlines. We should expect that cliffs will retreat, estuaries and low-lying rivers will silt up, and beach ridges of sand and shingle will move.</p>
<p>We may intervene to try slow this process, but such efforts come with a high price, both economically and socially. Nobody wants to see communities suffering because of flooding. But decisions taken during emergencies are often only remediation, short-term solutions which attend only to immediate needs. These include dredging rivers, improving pumping stations, piling on sandbags or adding rocks or concrete as coastal defence. But these will not prevent coastal erosion or flooding in the future.</p>
<h2>Flooding in the future</h2>
<p>Flooding is the most frequently occurring and damaging natural hazard worldwide. In 2010, it affected 178m people and caused <a href="https://www.gfdrr.org/urbanfloods">losses exceeding US$40 billion</a>. While the risk of death from flooding has declined over the last two decades, the exposure of people and economic assets to natural hazards is increasing.</p>
<p>In the UK, for example, <a href="http://www.thomastelford.com/books/bookshop_main.asp?ISBN=9780727734495">more than 2m properties</a> were estimated to be at risk from flooding in 2004. In 2009, the <a href="http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/library/publications/108660.aspx">Environment Agency estimated</a> that 5.2m properties were at risk from flooding in England alone. This increase is due to both increased occupation of flood-prone areas and improved risk assessment methods.</p>
<p>Climate change and poor urban planning are likely to increase flood risk in the future. The first by affecting local rainfall patterns and enhancing the potential for extreme weather events, and the latter by placing people and critical infrastructure in areas prone to flooding and erosion.</p>
<p>Policies have been implemented to regulate how development takes place in flood risk areas, but with an unrelenting pressure for an increase in housing, local authorities are often more keen to build than they are to reduce flood risk. In light of climate change and the predictions of further bad weather, it’s time to rethink priorities and consider the long-term consequences of planning decisions.</p>
<h2>Living with the consequences</h2>
<p>Flood defences are in urgent need of upgrading to cope with urban development, higher sea levels and more frequent and intense extreme weather. But irrespective of how much money is spent, it is impossible to protect everyone at all times <a href="https://theconversation.com/the-inconvenient-truth-houses-built-on-floodplains-could-flood-22605">in high-risk areas</a>.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to be at risk from flooding, you should start thinking about moving out from the floodplain or low-lying coastal areas. If you don’t want to be affected by cliff retreat, you should move away from the cliff top. The ultimate consequence of climate change to society is that we cannot continue living the way we did in the past.</p>
<p>If you live in an environment that is changing, you need to adapt to these conditions and adopt measures that will make you more resilient. This inevitably involves changing attitudes and taking responsibility for the way we live.</p>
<p>Many will blame climate change for the extreme events, and the government for not doing enough to reduce the extent and impact of flooding. But most of us will not consider what each one of us can do to become more resilient to the impact of similar, or more intense, weather in the future.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, we only question what could have been done better or differently during major crises. This distorts the debate and clouds the real issues, more often than not leading to rushed decisions and ineffective, short-term emergency works.</p>
<p>Human interventions have changed our coasts, rivers and landscape immensely and these impacts are far more significant than what can be attributed to climate change. You can blame the government for development in flood plains and high-risk coastal areas, but ultimately where you live is your decision.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22969/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Luciana S. Esteves has received funding from NERC (project Coastal Flooding by Extreme Events, CoFEE) and EU FP7 (projects Solutions for Environmental Contrasts in Coastal Areas, SECOA, and Morphological Impacts and Coastal Risks Induced by Extreme Storms, MICORE).</span></em></p>From the isolation of entire villages in the flood-hit Somerset Levels to coastal rail tracks falling into the sea at Dawlish in Devon, the economic, social and emotional damage to those hit by extreme…Luciana Esteves, Senior Lecturer Geography, Bournemouth UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/226702014-02-10T05:54:38Z2014-02-10T05:54:38ZTotal flood defence is a myth: we must learn to live with the water<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/41069/original/4gf4g6yq-1391958014.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Sometimes the choice is to flood town or country. Sometimes it's both.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ben Birchall/PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>Floods happen. Rivers have always inundated their floodplains and the sea has always tried to reclaim land that has been taken from it.</p>
<p>This is certainly true in Somerset, whose name derives from the Old English word for “<a href="http://www.britain-magazine.com/features/region/england/south-west/somerset/somerset-the-land-of-the-summer-people/">land of the summer people</a>”; so called because it was too wet in winter. In 1607 a major storm caused floods that <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/somerset/content/articles/2007/01/30/somerset_flood_1607_anniversary_feature.shtml">killed about 2,000 people</a> and swept away whole villages in Somerset and down the Bristol Channel. This was probably the greatest ever loss of life from British weather. </p>
<p>In the great flood of 1872, more than 100 square miles of land were flooded between October and the following March, and again in 1919. So while this month’s rainfall figures record that parts of England have had the wettest January on record, in the south-west it is only the fifth wettest. However, the previous winter of 2012-2103 also saw parts of the Somerset Levels similarly underwater for more than 100 days.</p>
<p>So the floodwaters are not unprecedented – and this raises two questions: could the damage have been reduced and can we expect more frequent flooding in the future? Undoubtedly damage can be reduced, but at a cost – politically and financially. For example, the standards of coastal and river flood defences in the Netherlands are much higher,and much more costly. With much of the population living below sea level, the reasons for this willingness to spend so much to avoid catastrophic damages is readily apparent. When flood defences failed during the <a href="https://theconversation.com/are-storm-surges-getting-worse-22136">great storm of 1953</a> it led to 350 deaths in Britain, and 1,800 in the Netherlands.</p>
<p>During the storms in December 2013, the highest storm surge since 1953, there were 26 breaches of the sea defences in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-25220224">East Anglia</a>. But forward warning saw timely evacuations, properties protected and the Thames Barrier raised to counter the highest water level since it was built. Because there had been the will to protect and money to do so, nobody died. How much are we prepared to spend now, especially if as climate models suggest flooding will increase in the future? </p>
<p>Flood protection in London is much higher, justified by the huge cost were central London to be flooded. But <a href="http://www.theccc.org.uk/blog/protecting-london-from-current-and-future-flood-risks/">protection is not total</a>, and defences could be overcome by a sufficiently strong flood, albeit rare. While this indicates how flooding can be devastating even without causing deaths, the investment in flood defences must be warranted, particularly if losses can be met by insurance. The balance that must be made depends on our estimates of risk, probability and damages, and each is uncertain since we have barely 100 years of data on which to base our estimates, and often much less. Models of the impacts of future change cannot yet provide robust estimates of how flood frequencies might be changing.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40818/original/9jz279y2-1391628312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40818/original/9jz279y2-1391628312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40818/original/9jz279y2-1391628312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40818/original/9jz279y2-1391628312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=390&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40818/original/9jz279y2-1391628312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40818/original/9jz279y2-1391628312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40818/original/9jz279y2-1391628312.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=490&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">The great flood of 1607, Britain’s worst natural disaster.</span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>The flood that gets through</h2>
<p>In a sense it does not matter, because floods happen anyway. There were major floods on the Thames and Severn in 1924, 1947 and 1960, and in 2000, 2007 and 2013. The decision that needs to be made is how far people living in flood-risk areas should expect to be protected. </p>
<p>Low-lying areas at risk were avoided as sites for permanent habitation in the past. Flood plains were left as water meadows, and crops were planted in spring time to avoid winter flooding. With nothing to be damaged, the impact was minor. In 1954, the UK’s record highest annual rainfall was recorded at Sprinkling Tarn in the Lake District. The total that year was over 6,500 mm, the equivalent of 21 <a href="http://www.visitcumbria.com/cockermouth-floods/">Cockermouth floods</a> falling in a single year. Yet a trawl through the <a href="http://www.thewestmorlandgazette.co.uk/">Cumberland and Westmoreland Gazette</a> for 1954 reveals discussion of the fact that it did not stop raining, but little in the way of reports of damages – because there was little on the flood plains to be damaged.</p>
<p>Flood defences change that approach, bringing an unwarranted air of invincibility. Defences lower the risk of damage from moderate flooding, but this year, or the next, or within 10 years, at some point a flood that exceeds their capacity will arrive. The aim should be to reduce the impact of a flood when it does happen by limiting the amount of people and property at risk behind the defences. Instead, building defences tends to encourage development behind the embankments or walls. In this way, even if overtopping floods occur rarely, the damages from those that do occur rapidly increase, even with major investment in flood defences.</p>
<h2>Damage is inevitable, try to reduce it</h2>
<p>Where’s the sense in spending more on defences if the damages will increase in the long term anyway? The most fundamental question is why society as a whole should pay to protect the one in six households in flood risk areas, many built in the last decade, and some such as at Kendal in Cumbria and Ruthin in Wales flooded within months of their occupants moving in. Under the government’s <a href="https://theconversation.com/government-flood-insurance-plan-is-already-treading-water-18175">new flood insurance plans</a>, from 2015 all household insurance policy holders will pay a levy to do so, alongside hundreds of millions of pounds allocated every year to flood management from taxation.</p>
<p>Since the floods in 2000 there has in fact been a <a href="http://archive.defra.gov.uk/environment/flooding/documents/policy/strategy/strategy-response1.pdf">policy shift towards mitigating damage</a> rather than trying to build hard defences aimed at protection. Strategies that provide storage for flood waters in areas where damage will be minimised, land management to reduce runoff, restoration of natural river channels, and sustainable urban drainage schemes are being implemented as ways of coping with the impact of a risk that cannot be entirely eliminated. </p>
<p>These are more “natural” ways of dealing with excess water, but may leave some properties and land less well protected or dependent on costly flood proofing. Perhaps if people who wish to live in flood risk areas were required to install flood proofing measures before moving in, it might focus attention to the areas’ vulnerability.</p>
<h2>The future for Somerset</h2>
<p>The emabattled Environment Agency has been accused of neglecting drainage and defences in the Somerset Levels for years, and it does seem that this rural area has not been a priority for expenditure – something exacerbated by the current budget cuts. Without a sudden change in priorities, this government will have cut channel maintenance spending by 45% by 2015. Groups such as the <a href="https://www.facebook.com/FLAGSomerset">Floods on the Levels Action Group</a> and <a href="http://www.nfuonline.com/science-environment/flooding/flooding-the-lessons-that-must-be-learned/">National Farmers Union</a> have suggested that such cuts represent a false economy when the costs of emergency pumping, disruption to the local population, and need to produce food are taken into account.</p>
<p>Results of studies commissioned by the Environment Agency after the 2012 winter floods, presented in an <a href="http://www.somersetdrainageboards.gov.uk/media/Letter-to-MPs-Feb-25-130225.pdf">open letter</a> by the Somerset Drainage Board, suggest that dredging would have significantly reduced the period of flooding in parts of the levels from months to days (although having seen only results I cannot comment on the assumptions made). But dredging is not always the right solution, and in some places might increase the risk to bridges or to areas downstream, and can allow the tides to move faster and reach further upstream, backing up flood waters in the rivers. This was one reason why London’s flood defences have had to be raised in the 20th century following dredging in the Thames estuary.</p>
<p>Nevertheless, the government has promised the Somerset rivers will be dredged as soon as possible. Just as the flood defences in Carlisle were redesigned after the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/4158641.stm">floods in 2005</a>, this must be considered a political decision in response to the misery of those affected – and the resulting media coverage. After all, when <a href="http://www.marinet.org.uk/impact-of-the-north-sea-surge-on-the-east-anglian-coast.html">flood defences succeed</a> it’s not nearly so newsworthy as when they fail.</p>
<p>But more spending on protection still poses the question as to whether this will lead to more flood plain development and more potential damage in the future. It does not appear as if we are managing the potential for future flooding that well, particularly in communicating to people in flood risk areas that they cannot be completely protected and that – even with flood defences in place – they should expect floodwaters, and prepare for them.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Keith Beven receives funding from an NERC Long Term Grant on Uncertainty in Environmental Modelling, the NERC PURE CREDIBLE consortium on uncertainties in natural hazards, the EPSRC Flood Risk Management Research Consortium, Defra and Environment Agency projects.
He has visiting appointments at the Department of Earth Sciences, Geocentrum, Uppsala University, and the Centre for Analysis of Time Series, London School of Economics.
</span></em></p>Floods happen. Rivers have always inundated their floodplains and the sea has always tried to reclaim land that has been taken from it. This is certainly true in Somerset, whose name derives from the Old…Keith Beven, Professor, Lancaster university, Lancaster UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/229192014-02-06T14:51:10Z2014-02-06T14:51:10ZInvest in railway lines like one at Dawlish before they wash away<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40918/original/gpfjkzxt-1391696966.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Some of our railways are missing.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Ben Birchall/PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><p>The assault on British coastlines by storm, flood and sea this winter is a taste of things to come. Rising sea levels and a greater risk of coastal flooding are a significant future threat. Britain is an island nation, and a great deal of important and expensive infrastructure, from ports and harbours to power stations and industry, lies along the coast. Roads and railway links are also vital – some entire coastal regions’ economies depend on key highways or rail links.</p>
<p>The coastal section of the London-Penzance railway line that runs between Dawlish and Teignmouth in Devon is a perfect example. As the main railway connection for the southwest of England to the rest of Great Britain, it is a vital transport link for the Devon and Cornwall economy. Several sections of the line have just been washed into the English Channel by storms, leaving the tracks hanging suspended in space over the waves. Network Rail’s first repair estimates are 4-6 weeks work, with engineers calling it the “<a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-26044283">worst damage they’ve seen in their careers</a>”.</p>
<p>Lying so close to sea level, just a few metres above the waves, the line has been susceptible to frequent closure during high seas and storms ever since it <a href="http://www.southwestcoastpath.com/walksdb/printable-walk/602/">opened in 1846</a>. The past 30 years have seen the problem worsen, coinciding with rising sea levels, but the current damage is the most severe in its entire 178 years of service. It is currently estimated that sea-level will by 2020 have risen <a href="http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0921818111000920">between 5-7cm from 2010 levels</a>, which by my estimates could double the amount of disruption on the line. By 2050 services could be affected for <a href="http://pearl.plymouth.ac.uk/handle/10026.1/912">several months of each year</a>.</p>
<p>It is not a case of if but when the railway will be lost completely to the sea. It is vital that the region prepares for this eventuality, and although Dawlish is arguably the most iconic coastal railway, there are others in <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-wales-north-west-wales-25794295">North Wales</a>, northwest England and in Scotland that will face similar problems in years to come.</p>
<h2>Rising tides</h2>
<p>Coastal flooding is most likely when strong storms and low atmospheric pressure combine to drive storm surges towards the coast. Coupled with high tides the effects can be devastating, as shown by the destruction in East Anglia and the Netherlands during the record <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/onthisday/hi/dates/stories/february/1/newsid_3749000/3749771.stm">storm of 1953</a>, when tide levels rose to two metres above the predicted high.</p>
<p>So with sea levels set to rise over the next century, these extreme events could become more frequent. Hard-engineered sea defences such as sea walls, rock armour, and breakwaters have been built to protect coastal communities and the services upon which they depend. Around 1,200km of coastline is protected, around a third of the total coastline of England and Wales. This is particularly evident in southern England.</p>
<p>Defence structures are built to a design standard based on the statistical chance of extreme water levels (such as one in 100 years). But it’s estimated that even small changes in sea level can produce a significant upwards trend to those chances. Other factors such as storminess and frequency of surges, and wave characteristics (known as wave climate) that cause coastal flooding are difficult to predict. Yet even with no changes in these factors the coastal threat, like the sea, is rising.</p>
<h2>Living with change</h2>
<p>And as tides rise, budgets shrink. Large cuts to national flood defences have been made and are expected to continue, raising serious fears for the funding of planned flood defence improvements along the coast. In the Southwest, plans to re-route the line have been dismissed as too costly. Taken from a purely transport economics or engineering perspective this may well be correct, but this evaluation does not take into account the wider socio-economic benefits of transport connectivity, such as access to employment, productivity gains, increased business opportunities and improved quality of life. </p>
<p>There is an urgent need to improve how the wider socio-economic benefits of transport can be translated into language that beancounters understand. Without investment, the future of Britain’s transport infrastructure services are at risk of failure and collapse, just as surely as the Dawlish-Teignmouth stretch of railway. The cost of clawing back from that eventuality will far outweigh the admittedly high costs of early intervention and adaptation. </p>
<p>While agenda-setting national plans like <a href="https://theconversation.com/hard-evidence-is-it-possible-to-forecast-hs2s-benefits-20164">HS2</a> and Crossrail steal the limelight, the regional and local lines where infrastructure and services are dense, highly interlinked, and heavily relied upon (especially in rural areas) are slowly abandoned. We must invest in the regional networks to tackle the problems specific to them, such as the Southwest Mainline, as by doing so will improve the resilience of Britain’s transport infrastructure overall.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22919/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>David Dawson receives funding from the EPSRC and ESRC.</span></em></p>The assault on British coastlines by storm, flood and sea this winter is a taste of things to come. Rising sea levels and a greater risk of coastal flooding are a significant future threat. Britain is…David Dawson, Research Fellow, University of LeedsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/226052014-01-30T16:07:35Z2014-01-30T16:07:35ZThe inconvenient truth: houses built on floodplains could flood<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40219/original/8wtpqkm7-1391094989.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Role reversal: a river of land in fields of water.</span> <span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim Ireland/PA</span></span></figcaption></figure><blockquote>
<p>Ministers should be applauded for recognising that there’s simply no way we could tell the thousands of key workers and low income families, desperate for a decent home, that we can’t build any more new homes because of concerns about flood plains.</p>
<h3>David Orr, National Housing Federation, BBC News, 2007.</h3>
</blockquote>
<p>For the past six weeks, Somerset has experienced its most significant flooding in decades that have at last required <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-floods-army-deployed-to-somerset-levels-as-military-planners-and-specialist-vehicles-provide-support-to-victims-9094223.html">calling out the army</a>.</p>
<p>While commentators fixate on <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/uk-floods-army-deployed-to-somerset-levels-as-military-planners-and-specialist-vehicles-provide-support-to-victims-9094223.html">dredging rivers</a>, or more sustainably <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/13/flooding-public-spending-britain-europe-policies-homes">planting trees</a>, or <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/environment/2014/jan/29/beavers-dam-flooding-owen-paterson">reintroducing beavers</a> as the solution to prevent more homes from being flooded, those with longer memories may cast them back to 2007, when much of central and southwestern England was underwater from some of the worst flooding in living memory. </p>
<p>Communities Minister Eric Pickles might like to consider the inconvenient truth of his own words in 2007 while in opposition. Following the floods, he said in response to Labour’s housing strategy that: “if you build houses on flood plains it increases the likelihood that <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/6911119.stm">people will be flooded</a>”.</p>
<h2>A flood of water and bad ideas</h2>
<p>As the still-beleaguered residents of the Somerset levels will recall, the floods of 2007 followed the wettest May, June and July since records began in 1766. The airwaves and newspapers were similarly awash with opinion in response to the government’s ambitious plans to <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2007/jul/11/gordonbrown.labour1">build 3m new homes</a> by 2020. Inevitably, it was said, so long as the proper defences were in place, some of these new homes would be built on floodplains.</p>
<p>The cost of 2007’s wettest-ever summer: 7,000 businesses and 48,000 homes were flooded in the South West, Midlands, Yorkshire and Humberside, prompting 120,000 household insurance claims, 27,000 commercial claims at a <a href="http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/business/industries/banking/article2155931.ece">£3bn overall cost to insurers</a>.</p>
<p>The subsequent inquiry led by Sir Michael Pitt <a href="http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/library/publications/33889.aspx">published its review</a> the following summer. It found that around 10% of properties in England were located on floodplains, with 11% of new homes since 2000 built in flood hazard areas, and 16,000 dwellings since 2006 built in high flood risk areas. Roughly a quarter of properties flooded in summer 2007 had been built in the last 25 years. This, the review pointed out, emphasised the vital importance of strong planning controls and well-informed planning decisions.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40220/original/khbb3rbm-1391095116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40220/original/khbb3rbm-1391095116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40220/original/khbb3rbm-1391095116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40220/original/khbb3rbm-1391095116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40220/original/khbb3rbm-1391095116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40220/original/khbb3rbm-1391095116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40220/original/khbb3rbm-1391095116.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Sandbags do not a flood defence make.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim Ireland/PA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Realising there needed to be a balance between development needs and flood risk, the idea of “environmental limits” was <a href="http://www.cpre.org.uk/resources/cpre/about-cpre/item/download/520">discussed within Defra</a>. In putting “the green back into the Green Belt” as then environment secretary David Miliband said, this stressed the importance of the ecosystems approach.</p>
<p>For example, planting urban woodland improves biodiversity and wildlife, provides a degree of flood control, renewable wood to offset climate change, and attractive environments for exercise and recreation. Strips of planted green space alongside city river banks are cheaper than expensive concrete barriers, and provide a fall-back area, a “turquoise belt”, that could be flooded without great risk or expense, and also provide for leisure and biodiversity at the same time.</p>
<h2>Recommendations made</h2>
<p>Of the 90 recommendations in Pitt’s review, two clearly stated there should be a presumption against building in high risk areas. This was in accordance with the government’s planning policy on flood risk, known as <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/development-and-flood-risk-practice-guide-planning-policy-statement-25">PPS25</a>.</p>
<p>The review also called for the effectiveness of PPS25 and the Environment Agency’s powers to challenge development to be kept under review, and strengthened if necessary. Another recommendation stated that Defra, the Environment Agency, and Natural England should establish through <a href="http://www.environment-agency.gov.uk/research/planning/33586.aspx">Catchment Flood Management Plans</a> a programme that would find a way of working with, rather than against, natural processes.</p>
<p>These approaches, which included setting back river defences and relocating buildings if necessary, were considered particularly important in the face of the predicted increase in river flow levels. Flood risk had to be managed co-operatively between local authorities, the Environment Agency and developers, in a more sustainable way and also as a means to provide more attractive places to live. Newspaper editorials at the time called for there to be “no backsliding on commitments to be better prepared in future” and that there should be “no cherry-picking of the Pitt recommendations for quick political gain in the run-up to a general election.</p>
<figure class="align-center ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40222/original/8647nykh-1391095226.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/40222/original/8647nykh-1391095226.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40222/original/8647nykh-1391095226.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40222/original/8647nykh-1391095226.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=399&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40222/original/8647nykh-1391095226.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40222/original/8647nykh-1391095226.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/40222/original/8647nykh-1391095226.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=502&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Flood Risk Management - A Little More Complex Than Dredging.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">Tim Ireland</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<h2>Recommendations ignored</h2>
<p>But a general election later, in 2012 prime minister David Cameron is pledging to ”<a href="http://www.theguardian.com/politics/2012/sep/02/david-cameron-cut-through-dither">cut through the dither</a>“ that is holding Britain in "paralysis” and has brought forward by contentious measures to relax rules on planning applications with an eye to boosting growth, and providing <a href="http://www.insidehousing.co.uk/development/relaxed-planning-rules-an-%E2%80%98attack-on-localism%E2%80%99/6523705.article">75,000 new homes</a>. The <a href="https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/national-planning-policy-framework--2">National Planning Policy Framework</a> is proclaimed “simple”, and had reduced planning policy from more than 1,000 pages to under 100, said to pave the way for swifter, clearer decisions.</p>
<p>Otto Thoresen, director-general of the The Association of British Insurers, expressed immediate concern that the framework could lead to greater inappropriate development in flood risk areas, something that the current “rigorous planning system” was a bulwark against. The result, <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/earth/hands-off-our-land/8776235/Hands-Off-Our-Land-Why-planning-reforms-could-pose-a-threat-to-any-economic-recovery.html">he predicted</a>, would not be the “stimulation of the economy,” but “misery for people when their homes are flooded”.</p>
<p>The National Flood Forum’s chairman, Charles Tucker, similarly argued that the new framework “has, at a stroke, scrapped the carefully constructed raft of technical guidance, context and definitions built up over years” for flood protection.</p>
<p>Dredging as a solution was raised following the Cumbria floods of 2009, to which <a href="http://www.nottingham.ac.uk/geography/people/colin.thorne">Professor Colin Thorne</a>, fluvial geomorphologist at the University of Nottingham, responded that floods caused by a huge amounts of rainfall cannot be entirely prevented. Constantly dredging rivers and clearing vegetation to do so would be unsustainably expensive, financially, socially and in terms of biodiversity and habitat loss.</p>
<p>It is clear to see, reflecting back on the floods of 2007 (and those in 2005 and 2009), the lack of integration and disjointed policy across the two central government departments has still not been resolved seven years later. The fixation with dredging continues, and David Cameron has called for <a href="http://news.sky.com/story/1202796/weather-mod-may-join-flood-relief-efforts">dredging to start</a> as soon as possible, reversing previous statements that it would be little help. </p>
<p>Perhaps instead if the media turned their attention to <a href="http://archive.defra.gov.uk/environment/flooding/documents/policy/strategy/strategy-response1.pdf">dredging the Defra archives</a>, they’d find the “inconvenient truth” of floodplain development – that houses built on floodplains could flood – a truth currently lying buried in the sediments of their own filing cabinets.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/22605/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Karen Potter receives funding from the Technology Strategy Board (TSB), Welsh Government and Natural Environment Research Council (NERC)</span></em></p>Ministers should be applauded for recognising that there’s simply no way we could tell the thousands of key workers and low income families, desperate for a decent home, that we can’t build any more new…Karen Potter, Lecturer in Environmental Planning, University of LiverpoolLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.