Dredge the Rivers ffs!!!!!!

[finetonive]

We need to go back to dredging rivers REGULARLY.

Those poor people.

When this type of rainfall happens, we need every ditch etc to fill up and hold as much water as possible.
There was flooding near us in summer of 2009, and it was all surface run off.

We don't need ditches to fill up and hold water. We need to massively reduce surface run off. The best place store water when there is a lot if rainfall is in the ground .

Unfortunately we have screwed that up by removal of vegetation, overgrazing, and tarmacking and concreting everywhere.

Yes global warming/climate change is an issue, but the flooding issue would not be nearly as significant if there hadn't been such mismanagement of catchments over the years.

fields used to be smaller when I was a child and consequently more hedgerows, there used to be ditches at the edge of fields for fields to drain into.These seem to have disappeared.Maybe less woodland too.I remember when my eldest was at primary school a farmer cut down a load of trees next to the school field and it started flooding which it had never done before.
I don't really understand how dredging a river would make it flow quicker? Surely a bigger cross-section would slow down the flow, as it would in a pipe?

Surely a bigger cross-section would slow down the flow, as it would in a pipe?
No, the exact opposite.
The larger the cross section the less that is affected by friction at the edges
so the more that can get into high speed laminar flow

compare water running over a flat surface with the same amount through a pipe - the pipe is faster

BUT
the issue is that at the headwaters of the catchments we should be slowing the water down so that it soaks in ....

then again two years ago in Hambledon it soaked in so well that the water table rose above the ground and nothing anybody could do would make the water go away till it had drained through the soil into te sea
which took six months

There was flooding near us in summer of 2009, and it was all surface run off.

ItsAllgointobe - In this case the water could not be held in the ground, as the ground was supersaturated, which is why there was surface run off. In this case having cleared ditches was the solution, as a cleared ditch can hold 3x as much water as a filled in ditch. There was very heavy rainfall over a short period, the ground couldn't absorb any more, so it ran off across the fields and into the houses. If the ditches had been clear, the ground around would have been less saturated (as some of the water would have been in the ditch) and there would have been some capacity in the system to cope with one afternoon of heavy rain.
By the way, that was the opinion of my dh who is a water engineer and cannot understand how slack we are in uk with water management.

www.facebook.com/AnTaisce/photos/a.307526550456.324114.68916935456/10156430933705457/?type=3&theater

Possibly photoshopped but kind of true anyway.

I posted that photo yesterday.

This however is NOT photoshopped ....
www.woodleynet.co.uk/floods2014-2.htm
THe last pictures are of houses they have not finished building yet

Sillybilly (nice name smile) there are many new developments on flood plains... the trick seems to be not to actually designate them as such on council maps, Ta da! Lots of building spaces... I give you Tewkesbury and Longlevens here in Gloucestershire. There are many more but, whilst wildly different in nature and history, they both have old 'new' developments and new and yet more proposed development on land known by all and sundry to be flood plains. You will have seen both on national news, a lot, during the last couple of floods here.

Interesting. It is the Environment Agency that produces the flood maps. However, planning rules are very strict about flooding and planners use the EA maps - it is nothing to do with the local council designating which areas are flood plains or not. I'm guessing that the areas people think are flood plains aren't actually at all but I could be wrong.

The rules are here: planningguidance.communities.gov.uk/blog/guidance/flood-risk-and-coastal-change/applying-the-sequential-test-to-individual-planning-applications/

Sillybilly
The EA maps are a work in progress and one can get VERY upset developers if one deigns to show older versions from before the advisers leaned on the EA to change their views

the advisers are inside the DCLG and planning inspectorate on secondment from impartial people like the NHBF

The sheep have been there for generations / centuries. It's not sheep farming that's the issue.

It's the unpredictability of the weather with v stupid building consents ( flood plains, drives) and lack of maintenance.

I live on a flood plain that was built over in Victorian times. We have a void under the house because until the stream was semi culverted the gardens flooded regularly and the water came into the void. The gardens remain, er, squishy.

We mostly need not only to not build on flood plains, but to maintain those flood plains and increase their ability to absorb water. My town is built in the loop of an uncontrolled (ie no locks), and after 2007 the EA paid for the flood plains to be planted with reeds, sculpted to provide wetland habitats normally, which then when the river floods slows the water movement and traps it so it drains in. There are flood defences in certain places along the river, but these have to be combined with more ability for the river to overflow elsewhere otherwise it can't work.

This

The sheep have been there for generations / centuries. It's not sheep farming that's the issue.

This may be true, but the farm subsidies that require clearance of all vegetation have not been. Farming practices are a large part of the issue.

The sheep have been there for generations / centuries. It's not sheep farming that's the issue.

This may be true, but the farm subsidies that require complete removal of vegetation have not. Farming practice is a contributor to flooding.

This may be true, but the farm subsidies that require clearance of all vegetation have not been. Farming practices are a large part of the issue.
Correct

We're sheep farmers and we actually receive an Agroforestry grant in order to promote forestry and planting of trees on grazing land. We're in Scotland and I haven't ever farmed in England but I had assumed England had a comparative scheme as it's EU led. How odd.

It’s a combination of a lot of things that will help. Grow the peat bogs, plant trees, hard standing around houses should be porous so that it allows water through. Rainwater storage in new builds. New sacrificial flood plains could be constructed, storm drains around major urban centres.

Tackling global warming would help as well. Can’t believe that solar panels and ground source heating aren’t compulsory these days.

What would be great would be if we would listen to and respect the experts in their field when they give their advice, instead of letting politicians make their own short term stupid decisions, partly based on 'the man in the street thinks ...' and 'we need to be seen to do something ...'

Came on the thread to add my Kenneth on why dredging not the answer- and seeing loads. And loads of really sensible nuanced opinion.

Why is media and government all about 'must dredge' as the solution for this all the time?? When I hear phone ins etc its full of idiots talking rubbish about dredging. MNers you're all awesome- but what's going on in the media???!

In Lancaster they improved the flood defences along the quayside as part of building 1,000s of new homes on Riverview. So it was a couple of miles upstream that flooded instead, the substation was lost, so the power for 55,000 homes was off for quite some time...

A lot of the flooding in the city centre was just the drains overflowing - again a very old city with very old drainage systems. What used to marshland was built on many decades ago and so on. All the things mentioned have contributed to the situation today decisions are made without looking at the much bigger picture.

Instead of people thinking they need a home of their own we need to accept that the housing crises will remain and accept that multi generational living will go back to being the norm. The decadence of the 70/80/90/00 has been and gone.

I live near a flood plain and there have been regular planning applications. Thankfully (and surprisingly considering how stupid my local council is) it has been been refused every time. The flood plain did it's job when we were badly flooded last year so hopefully the council will remember this and refuse again. I've got photos of the flooding so will be producing them to object!

Our drains and gullies are completely overgrown. When I asked the council when they intended clearing them I was told they don't have their own machine to clear the gullies and have to borrow from a neighbouring council!

I do sometimes wonder what our council actually does. Although we are near a river, the flooding last year was caused by ground water (although the river did flood some properties) but obviously the council didn't learn any lessons. Every time we get heavy rain the drains are overflowing and the road floods.

With reference to the council keeping drains and gullies clear - they are not being lazy, in most case they simply don't have the money. Budget have been cut to the bone and beyond, and things like schools and refuse collection take priority over things like drainage maintenance.

It is not normally the job of the council to keep water courses running : that is what Inland Drainage Boards do
www.ada.org.uk/idbs.html

And councils are not allowed to clear land that they do not own - that is the landowners job
AND
Councils have had their budgets cut by 38% in the last 6 years at the same time as the amount they have to spend on old people has rocketed

The internal drainage boards are only responsible for about 10 percent of the country though , for areas which have special drainage needs , such as the Levels and the Fens , and are in only a few counties . They're not nationwide .

Sadly my local county council is useless and they could definitely do more (various news stories about jollies and salaries that I won't link to as all I can find at the moment is the Daily Mail!).

And don't get me started on the borough council...