To be fed up with floods and think it's climate change?

[malificent7]

Live and work in Somerset. Can't get home due to floods. This is the 3rd time in 2 months that the commute has been dangerous. Aibu to think that this is climate change and to be scared and pissed off about it? Yes...i am a contributor to the oroblem. I know.

No, it’s about blocked drains actually. And building on flood plains.

Climate is changing as it’s always done. Blaming everything on it is basically either a grift to steal from the taxpayer or excuse political corruption/incompetence.

We've had heatwaves, catastrophic storms and flooding in the last few weeks here. It's climate change.

Any single event might not be climate change.

But the overall more frequent incidence of storms, floods, extreme heat etc is climate change.

2011-2020 was 9% wetter than 1961-1990 according to the State of the UK Climate report issued by the met Office every year.

Blocked drains, the roads where I live are full of tarmac or leaves.

wasnt there was a tornado in England and a severe storm throughout the whole of the UK and even more weather warnings set to come the other week? It is unusual for the UK so it probably is a result of climate change

It's very likely, although one needs to look over a period of years. I think the telling thing is that the sea level has risen apprix 20cm in the past 100 years or so, and a good deal of that in the last 30 years. It's definitely accelerating.

OP, the Somerset levels have always flooded. Most of Somerset was marshes until the 17th century when Dutch engineers were brought in to drain them.

Somerset or Summer Set means an area only accessible for grazing in summer because it was flooded all winter.

Climate change won't help but it's likely that poor maintenance of the drainage channels, and building roads and houses on floodplains is the problem. Developers won't listen - they just want to make a quick buck and this is the result.

So why are the drains so poorly maintained then? It has rained many times in my 45 years. I have lived in Somerset for 30 odd years and yes, there have been floods but not with as much frequency.
It is undercunding by government right?

Bizarrely the U.K. has more tornadoes by area than any other country. So tornadoes are not unusual but normally they don’t cause damage.
https://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-tornadoes-by-area

I grow up in somerset in the 80s it always floods..has done for centuries. It's why they crafts are as they are. Some idiot built houses on the flood plains when I was growing up there and everywhere shocked the houses flooded.

It can be a combination of things (drainage issue is getting worse in a lot of places as lots of drains are still victoriana and not designed for modern living eg houses with multiple showers in use multiple times a day, dishwashers, washing machines etc) and more new houses feeding into them.

However:

• drainage normally affects flash flooding (surface runoff), poor drainage doesnt normally cause rivers to burst their banks

• it's also accepted that winters are getting wetter and warmer than in the past, and summers are drier but when it does rain, its more intense. There are loads of articles about this on the met Office. Both of these changes mean that flooding is more likely, irrespective of drainage issues.

So although people are right that these areas have always flooded, they are likely to be flooding more frequently and more severely, than they would have in the absence of climate change

The floods around here are purely only happening due to piss poor ditch management and river dredging being banned by the EU.

if they could dredge the river by my stables, which is about half the width (& probably depth) it used to be, there would be zero flooding around us.

Back at school 30 years ago I remember by wing taught about global warming presented as a theoretical thing. Nowadays we can point to 1 in 100 year events happening over and over and it is difficult to ignore the reality that the air and sea are warmer so extreme floods stronger storms heatwaves are now more common.

On top of that long term austerity and lack of investment in this country means that all public services are crumbling ( literally in some cases ) which of course includes councils the environment agencies etc so drains flood defences are neglected too which makes things worse.

Flooding events are already more common due to climate change and will increase going forwards.

Those pretending it is just leaves down the drain are flatearthers.

We can increase drainage and defences, but that doesn't change the science even if it protects us from (some of) the flooding.

YANBU to be concerned, climate change is going to fuck a lot of things up.

It's caused by blocked drains.
I've reported two close to my house to the council.. They respond a couple of days later to say engineers have checked them and there is no problem apparently even though water is running out of the drains themselves.
Concrete blocks placed temporarily across our drive last night to prevent flooding but it's no way to live when you've worried to go to sleep at night. If we hadn't been at home the house would have been flooded for the second time.
The council just isn't interested.

The EU has not banned river dredging.

https://fullfact.org/online/EU-dredging-floods/

I'm near Worcester and floods are nothing new. What has changed is the water coming up over roads it didn't before probably due to flood barriers upstream, new developments and badly planned roads.

Thank you @PoppyFleur , you saved me having to counter the bonkers “it’s the EU’s fault” nonsense upthread.

Dredging doesn't stop flooding. In some cases it is known to make it worse. In some cases it provides limited benefit.

In some cases dredging did reduce the water levels of rivers, but this did not lead to reductions in flooding risk during extreme flows because other features such as infrastructure upon the floodplain increasingly affect water levels rather than the capacity or shape of the river channel itself. In some cases, dredging actually increased the flood risk further downstream.

https://www.britishecologicalsociety.org/is-dredging-a-sustainable-solution-for-managing-uk-floods/

Dredging doesn't really work. It sounds simple so it appeals to some people, especially climate change deniers, but like all science it's complicated.

If you have climate change leading to unusual weather patterns then you need to spend a lot more on everything from cleaning drains and ditches to changing hard surfaces to porous ones

No one wanted the cost of preventing climate change and no one wants to cost of adaptation

Our river is about 12m narrower than it was 30 years ago. absolutely it would make a huge difference if it was returned to its original size.

Didnt a farmer get put in hail not long ago for dredging a river? it instantly cured the local village flooding but he still got jailed.

It is both. Climate change means more intense rainfall and we have not adapted the UK infrastructure to deal with that.

I was skating across massive lakes of rainwater sitting on the roads and pavements in central London yesterday. Mediterreanan cities, where intense rain storms have been a thing for centuries, often have drain culverts in the centre of roads with a soft cambre both sides of the road so water can run down to them. They also have down pipes with wide ending that spit out on to the road rather than in to drains.

So a bit of drains bht mainly climate change.

Totally agree! Everyone is banging the drum about climate change but if you look more closely, the areas flooding near me are those that have been intensively built on. A few other areas it turns out were that the drains were blocked because the council didnt clear them, it took members of the public to do that (when homes have been flooded and cars wrecked, something so simple could’ve avoided it). On a particular area, the new estate is being built, the overflow pond was empty but the next village was underwater 🤦🏻‍♀️

@RedPony1 might make it better for you but likely to hit the next downstream settlement much harder