Oh - its definitely not just dredging @Dovefromabove, there has to be more input than that,and teh chap did say there's too much new housing built in unsuitable locations, but that's councils for you. They'd sell their granny if it made them money. Did you see the bit where there was a landslide? I rest my case. Our council allowed building in a bit nearwhere my parents' house is. Totally inappropriate - steep bank behind it. Large, expensive houses crammed in to a small plot. But if course, it's near the motorway and all the links to Glasgow, so no problem finding buyers....
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
There are almost no environmental issues for which a suitable answer isn't 'plant more trees'.
More trees - and specifically hedgrerows - on the upland catchments would reduce silt run off from the fields, improving water quality, reducing the need for fertilisers on the land and reducing the need for dredging in the first place. Ground with trees planted - even one tree - absorbs more than 60 times as much water as grass.
Dredging destroys river bank habitats for wildlife.
What we're dealing with is climate change - as it has been predicted for ages - more intensive rainfall for more prolonged periods - and our river systems are trying to adapt. But we've culverted and walled them in. If you wall in the rivers through one town, one down stream floods next time. Once the whole river is walled in, the places with the lowest walls start to flood again. We have to accept that this is going to become normal for us in Winter. Just as huge wildfires have become normal in Australia and parts of America.
Gardening on the edge of Exmoor, in Devon
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Thanks for bringing in the Olive branch this morning, @Dovefromabove. Water level down significantly this morning, a few of the flower beds have been stripped bare, but it could have been so much worse. Moira did manage to get home late last night, had to walk the last half mile, as our road is still flooded.
How can you lie there and think of England When you don't even know who's in the team
Glad Moira got home safely @punkdoc. I agree @raisingirl - up here , or further north anyway, it's tree planting that largely sorts it. I think the problem is also because one method isn't sustained properly, so the problem builds, and then you just have a new set of problems. The short sighted views of endless government policymakers means that the best solutios are ditched in favour of the cheapest/easiest. They never think ahead because they really don't know or care. The great environmentalist John Muir was talking about climate change a hundred years ago....
It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Good to hear Moira is safe @punkdoc I heard on the news last night one woman was swept away in her car. Don't start me on Councils & inappropriate building, all we are getting round here is flats & more flats, corner houses with a bit of garden becoming 6-8 flats, all the land round Colindale & Hendon, including the old aerodrome, the police college, the newspaper Library, hospital etc all flats. The services can't cope we even heard from someone who worked on the ground works at the police college site said the drains etc had not been upgraded so guess where the overflow will go. The old silkstream (most of which is in an underground culvert) has flooded in the past leaving the Public Health labs car park and ground floors under water as well as all the surrounding streets of houses. It will get worse.
There must be enough disgruntled and/or informed residents with local knowledge about flood plains, drainage systems etc to get together and form a local pressure group, even if it's only on FB, to publicise such concerns and hold councillors and planners to account. and expose such nonsense before it happens. Same goes for all the new builds planned for the south east - not enough water, not enough power, not enough sewer and drainage systems, not enough hospitals, schools, transport systems......
It is persisting down here and set to get heavier so the bit of DIY I planned to do in the garage is postponed - not attached and open to the north wind - and I shall go and do something warm and dry.
I hope @punkdoc and Moira and all the others with too much water are doing OK and their pets too.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Flooding is not helped by fields of Maize with no underplanting, round here the water just gushes out of the fields onto the roads. I think that was a contributing factor to the Somerset flooding a few years ago.
Gardening on the wild, windy west side of Dartmoor.
Except for a couple of fields of maize being grown for seed stock, it's all been harvested round here and the fields are already green with weedlings or mustard and some are being ploughed and sown with winter wheat. Bet the chappy whose field is now a lake is pleased they got that done last week. Even my new rose bed area is a lake in parts today.
I hope my weeping willow is happier now.
Vendée - 20kms from Atlantic coast.
"The price good men (and women) pay for indifference to public affairs is to be ruled by evil men (and women)."
Posts
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
More trees - and specifically hedgrerows - on the upland catchments would reduce silt run off from the fields, improving water quality, reducing the need for fertilisers on the land and reducing the need for dredging in the first place. Ground with trees planted - even one tree - absorbs more than 60 times as much water as grass.
Dredging destroys river bank habitats for wildlife.
What we're dealing with is climate change - as it has been predicted for ages - more intensive rainfall for more prolonged periods - and our river systems are trying to adapt. But we've culverted and walled them in. If you wall in the rivers through one town, one down stream floods next time. Once the whole river is walled in, the places with the lowest walls start to flood again. We have to accept that this is going to become normal for us in Winter. Just as huge wildfires have become normal in Australia and parts of America.
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Thanks for bringing in the Olive branch this morning, @Dovefromabove.
Water level down significantly this morning, a few of the flower beds have been stripped bare, but it could have been so much worse.
Moira did manage to get home late last night, had to walk the last half mile, as our road is still flooded.
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Morning all, sun is shining but it's cold.
Planting trees is something they do a lot in France to prevent flooding. Often poplars or of that family.
I agree @raisingirl - up here , or further north anyway, it's tree planting that largely sorts it. I think the problem is also because one method isn't sustained properly, so the problem builds, and then you just have a new set of problems. The short sighted views of endless government policymakers means that the best solutios are ditched in favour of the cheapest/easiest. They never think ahead because they really don't know or care.
The great environmentalist John Muir was talking about climate change a hundred years ago....
I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
Don't start me on Councils & inappropriate building, all we are getting round here is flats & more flats, corner houses with a bit of garden becoming 6-8 flats, all the land round Colindale & Hendon, including the old aerodrome, the police college, the newspaper Library, hospital etc all flats. The services can't cope we even heard from someone who worked on the ground works at the police college site said the drains etc had not been upgraded so guess where the overflow will go. The old silkstream (most of which is in an underground culvert) has flooded in the past leaving the Public Health labs car park and ground floors under water as well as all the surrounding streets of houses. It will get worse.
It is persisting down here and set to get heavier so the bit of DIY I planned to do in the garage is postponed - not attached and open to the north wind - and I shall go and do something warm and dry.
I hope @punkdoc and Moira and all the others with too much water are doing OK and their pets too.
I hope my weeping willow is happier now.