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The Floods in Germany and beyond ... a first hand account
Dovefromabove
Posts: 88,147
I have a long-standing German friend living in Wuppertal which is in the area of western Germany where the floods are happening. She and I are on a food/cookery forum ... she posted this the other day and has given me permission to re-post it here as I thought some of you might be interested in the situation in her region. Fortunately she and her partner are ok ... their apartment block is high enough up a hill to be unaffected by the floods themselves, but of course the infrastructure problems will affect everyone ...
"... Still drizzling, but yes, we are OK.
..... we may be victims of our own success.
To be fair, our flood defenses in this area are actually quite extensive.This region has loads of reservoirs, producing drinking water for the Ruhr and part of the Rhineland.
The river Wupper is nothing to write home about, here it is about two feet deep on average. It does have a history of flooding, but they really installed a good system of large and small reservoir upstream that normally works excellently.
But as I said, the Bergisch Land and the Sauerland produce drinking water for millions - and we had severe and unusual droughts in the last years. The reservoirs did cope just about and in spring they were worried about filling them again for the next hot summer - and this year obliged with a cool, wet spring. They must have been really pleased, everything fillled up again and ready, should the summer turn hot and dry again.
I guess this is why they were not that quick to drain the reservoirs beforehand. And the ever-continuing thinning of the workforce will also play its part.
This is what happened in Hagen and Wuppertal.
The regions further south are notoriously prone to flooding, what with water from as far aways as the Alps, South Germany, France and Belgium feeding the rivers. What with modern agriculture, a "not in my backyard"-culture and the traditionally dense building on the banks of the Rhine, Moselle and the Ahr things become almost unmanageable. All these rivers were "streamlined" in the 19th and 20th century and the newly reclaimed areas were gratefully taken up and used.
The farmers and vintners and the people who live on this land will not be able to simply give it all up and move away.
All in all it is a mix of global warming, more droughts and then massive rains that ail us.
This weather system did not just hit Germany, half of Western Europe seems to be affected ...."
Today she said "... The thing is, no one wants to sacrifice anything, so nothing is done. In the countryside we would need more hedges, ditches and ponds to conserve, but also to delay water. Works both in droughts and floodings.
People are fighting tooth and nail against wind turbines ... (her partner's) boat is moored about 600 meters away from five or six of them. I like the look of them and the noise, even if the wind is coming from their direction is less than the road noise here..."
This reminds me so much of the attitude of many people in the UK ... we must take note and learn rapidly from the experience of others ... but it is probably too late ...........
"... Still drizzling, but yes, we are OK.
..... we may be victims of our own success.
To be fair, our flood defenses in this area are actually quite extensive.This region has loads of reservoirs, producing drinking water for the Ruhr and part of the Rhineland.
The river Wupper is nothing to write home about, here it is about two feet deep on average. It does have a history of flooding, but they really installed a good system of large and small reservoir upstream that normally works excellently.
But as I said, the Bergisch Land and the Sauerland produce drinking water for millions - and we had severe and unusual droughts in the last years. The reservoirs did cope just about and in spring they were worried about filling them again for the next hot summer - and this year obliged with a cool, wet spring. They must have been really pleased, everything fillled up again and ready, should the summer turn hot and dry again.
I guess this is why they were not that quick to drain the reservoirs beforehand. And the ever-continuing thinning of the workforce will also play its part.
This is what happened in Hagen and Wuppertal.
The regions further south are notoriously prone to flooding, what with water from as far aways as the Alps, South Germany, France and Belgium feeding the rivers. What with modern agriculture, a "not in my backyard"-culture and the traditionally dense building on the banks of the Rhine, Moselle and the Ahr things become almost unmanageable. All these rivers were "streamlined" in the 19th and 20th century and the newly reclaimed areas were gratefully taken up and used.
The farmers and vintners and the people who live on this land will not be able to simply give it all up and move away.
All in all it is a mix of global warming, more droughts and then massive rains that ail us.
This weather system did not just hit Germany, half of Western Europe seems to be affected ...."
Today she said "... The thing is, no one wants to sacrifice anything, so nothing is done. In the countryside we would need more hedges, ditches and ponds to conserve, but also to delay water. Works both in droughts and floodings.
People are fighting tooth and nail against wind turbines ... (her partner's) boat is moored about 600 meters away from five or six of them. I like the look of them and the noise, even if the wind is coming from their direction is less than the road noise here..."
This reminds me so much of the attitude of many people in the UK ... we must take note and learn rapidly from the experience of others ... but it is probably too late ...........
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
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Posts
@KT53 ....where has my friend pointed the finger at the UK?
The only mention of the UK is mine ... and I'm referring to Nimbyism in general, not specifically regarding wind farms. A farmer I know is having difficulty getting permission to have a solar panel park on a field which cannot be seen from any house or any road ... what's that about?
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
What I find most depressing is the political reaction to the floods and to the wild fires and heat waves in North America - we must do more to address climate change. Well, yes, but the horse that caused this year's weather was bolting out of its stable decades ago. We could stop emitting carbon tomorrow and these things would keep happening for years to come. We have to do more to address climate change because if we don't, the next generation will be facing these events more and more often, but it won't stop them happening to us - it's too late for that, at least 30 years too late. And then there's the deeper anger that politicians only even think about it when it's 'us' that are being hammered by the weather. There are whole populations being affected out of our line of sight who have been calling for action for all those 30 years.
Now we have to adapt. We have to face up to what we've done and try to find ways for people to live with it. AND stop making it worse. So that's expensive and politicians waver when they aren't actually in the middle of a crisis. They have such short memories, don't they? Of course, the price is going to keep going up; the longer we wait, the higher the cost, in every sense.
But will we act? Next article on the news is the travel industry moaning that not enough people are flying away on their holidays and they want government subsidy to stay in business. Anyone want to lay a bet where the investment goes in the next few years? Helping people who are living on flood plains to adapt or move? Or helping British Airways to stay in business?
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
… but you explain it much better and with more information than I.
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.
If you won't accept solar panels, will you live with a wind turbine instead? If you don't want a wind turbine on the horizon are you thinking they can stick them out to sea? Will you then write letters to protest at the harm to sea birds? If you don't want off-shore turbines, will you accept a nuclear power station down the road? No? Fine. Rolling black outs and huge price hikes for power here we come. Oh right, don't want that either? That brings us back to heat waves and flooding then. More and more often, more and more severe.
There isn't an option where nothing changes. Something has to
“It's still magic even if you know how it's done.”
Gardening in Central Norfolk on improved gritty moraine over chalk ... free-draining.